To Be Determined Later
by Antje
Summary: Shawn finds the dead body of an unidentifiable vandal in the holding cells. While it's nice to have something to do to get his mind off heartache, and how it is that Carlton knows more about that heartache than anyone else, it's not fun to realize you cannot always escape your mistakes. Prequel to Apply Liberally at Sunrise. SS/CL. JO/BG.
1. Never Explain Anything

Title: To Be Determined Later (_That _is_ the title_...)  
Timeline: As usual, ignores a lot of show stuff after Season 4; and may not match the continuity of the show (I always liked the idea that Psych itself had no general continuity: episodes were just episodes, but that the series was not necessarily aired in any sort of chronological order, especially early on).  
Characters/Pairings: Shawn and Carlton (UST); Shawn and OMC (breakup); Gus and Juliet (established)  
Rating: Teen+ for television-style swears, sexiness and readability—not given greatest to least importance there...  
Disclaimer: Psych is owned by NBC Universal Television and several other production companies, none of which I am affiliated with.  
Notes: This is a prequel to Apply Liberally at Sunrise, and seems to take place about a year to four months before. In my opinion, you needn't read Apply Liberally at Sunrise to read this. It'd be interesting to read them close together, since there are tidbits in this that tie in with ALAS. I might've missed some things that connected the two but nothing major. 6/02/20 - Story upload complete. I'm trying to eat typos like Pac-Man.

-x-

**I. Never Explain Anything**

_2010..._

Shawn had met Adrian while standing in line at a Vons in Ventura. The Vons at East Harbor Boulevard, not the Vons on East Main, or the one—well, let's stop there. Your dear author might be here all day if all the Vons in that area had to be listed to differentiate one from another. Anyway, it was the Vons on East Harbor Boulevard in Ventura, California, and it was in May of 2010. A year, of course, before this story takes place. There's a reason for that.

Before you ask, "What was Shawn buying at Vons, and doesn't he seem more like a Trader Joe's kind of guy, because there's one just a couple blocks away?" it should be declared that details about Adrian and his purpose in this story are poignant and—dare it be said?—emotional. As a sentimental moon, Adrian eclipses nothing, only gives this story a little bit of a poetic glow. Much like that whole sentence, the one you just read.

Shawn thought Adrian _looked _like poetry, at least as much as any human flesh-sack can look like sprawling language and aurally matching syllables. Long-limbed, black-haired, fair-eyed, a hint of a guy just growing out of his hipster, counter-culture phase. Maybe thirty, maybe not. Twenty-nine, Shawn found out later. Twenty-nine and a Sagittarius. It wasn't even a very poetic sign. Lots of writers had been Sagittarians, though: LM Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Shirley Jackson, and the biggest of the big, the great god of all poetry under which all others must suffer inglorious emulation: Emily Dickinson.

Standing in line at a Vons in Ventura, California, Shawn purposefully kept his mind from noticing details. He could tell where this person—still nameless, but how long would that last?—had been, what he'd been doing, and even what he was going to do with the rest of his day. Have a cookout, or he just really liked hot dog buns. It was a pleasant Saturday: it was an afternoon hour, sunbeams just beginning to turn gold. It would be a nice night to cook slabs of meat over heat and flame.

"You should get a pineapple and grill it, too," Shawn blurted out before he could stop himself. Once, as a kid, his mom used to worry that he'd be too friendly with the wrong kind of person. End up lost, despaired, another tragedy like too many Shawn had witnessed being in and out of the cop shop most of his life. His mother had a right to worry. And perhaps that's what really started it all: her apprehensions about Shawn not being vigilant enough, Shawn being too friendly, Shawn, in essence, being everything he really was. These earmarks of Shawn's personality might've been perceived as potentially harmful to one cop of the Santa Barbara Police Department: Henry Spencer. Seemed that, to Shawn, about that time, when his mom tried to talk to him about villainous strangers, that his dad started rearing him to be what he was now: a master of parlor tricks.

Maybe it worked. It wasn't until he was about twelve that his parents realized his instincts about people were better than their own, and his mom was a therapist and his father was a cop: jobs that relied on intuitive judgements, not mellifluous chicanery.

But then, the unknown carb-hauling hunk tossed an expressionless glance at the daring speaker behind him. Shawn could feel his friendliness increase. They had to be friends. They could even be more than friends.

"Haven't you ever had grilled pineapple? It takes a little longer, depending on how you slice it, thin or thick, but it's really good. Brings out the sugars and the sweetness."

Shawn said all of this while tossing a pineapple—his pineapple—from one hand to the other, like a prickly tennis ball.

"Is that what you're going to do with your pineapple?"

It speaks, Shawn thought. The pantheon god of poetry—no, really, who was the god of poetry again?—he speaketh unto me. He had a nice voice, and Shawn disliked that it was the first thing he thought. Everyone says that about instant crushes met in supermarket queues: Oh, he has such a nice voice. Smooth and distinguished, effortlessly poetic and able to recite the most obscure poetry.

Now that he'd gotten the god to speak, he wanted to get the god to laugh. Gods only laugh when humans make plans, after all. He stopped tossing the pineapple and looked dead serious, partially bewildered. "Wait, hold on. You can actually _see _me?"

That did bring out a snicker. "I can see you. Ghosts don't usually wait in line to buy pineapples."

"You got me there. And I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet. Fruit salad with mini marshmallows? Maybe. Pina coladas? Only if I get caught in the rain. Break out my grandmother's Polynesian chicken recipe? Eh, not so likely. Slicing it for grilling? That would require a grill. And that I don't have."

"On a day like today, you don't even really need one."

A reference to the weather. It'd been hot that day. Not scorching, but hot. Hot for May. Smoke hung in the air like sorry whispers. At least this character in front of him was decent at small talk. There was a recognized boldness between them, as if they had that in common.

"Tell you what, stranger," Shawn heard him say, as the pineapple slowly lifted from his palm, "I'll buy the pineapple if you come and keep me company at what's likely to be a very boring barbeque."

That was an uncanny suggestion. Shawn was momentarily cautious—not like him. "How do you know I'm not some pineapple-eating serial killer?"

"Well, if you are, death would still be a better adventure than the barbeque."

"Ouch. I hope you don't like these people. Who are they? Do I get to tell them what you said? Maybe even if I just paraphrase it a little? Hide it metaphorically in a story that no one will be able to tell is about us meeting at a Vons queue? Might be fun."

They were joined together then, separate purchases now one. Close enough to the conveyer belt, the unknown god of poetry laid out the fresh comestibles. "A graduation party for one of my cousins. Graduation parties are notoriously boring. There'll be so many people there that it won't matter if I bring a friend."

Shawn wanted to ask if they really were friends—seemed an odd leap to make but sometimes that's what faith, and a good dollop of stupidity, did. "We should come up with a backstory in case they ask."

"They won't ask. But, if anyone does, I'll tell them that I met you at a Vons. In Ventura. The one on the west side of town. Are you from here?"

He paid cash for the items, a soft wallet, newish looking, full of twenties. Shawn wondered what he did, and excluded hard labor for the lack of calluses and cuts and bruises. He probably had a cushiony job, like Gus and his pharmaceuticals. "No—Santa Barbara. Just passing through."

That took him by surprise. He blinked, and his eyes were mostly gray and sometimes faintly blue. He plucked the reusable bag, but Shawn took it from him. It was the least he could do if he was going to go and eat at a graduation party full of strangers. All strangers but one.

"I'm Adrian."

"Shawn—Shawn Spencer."

They never even shook hands or anything. By the end of the graduation party, it didn't even matter. They were barely out of one another's company the next two days, or the next year.

-x-

_2011…_

It didn't take long for Shawn to realize where he was. The blowing breeze from open windows ruffled his forelocks even before he was fully awake. In the kitchen, noises of utensils, a pan landing on the burner, a plate on the counter. He was at his father's house, where he'd grown up, or where he'd pretended to grow up. Growing up was really just a guessing game, anyway. It didn't happen magically, like he and Gus "grew up" thinking it would. It didn't happen at graduation. It didn't happen with the loss of his V-card (a phrase he himself didn't use, because he was too old for that slang to resonate in his brain; it was strictly one for those born after 1988), and it didn't happen when his parents split, and it didn't happen when he traveled the country, and parts of North America, looking for himself only to find himself back in Santa Barbara and waking up on his father's couch. His couch. The one he used to nap on when he was five and it was Christmas day, and he'd opened all his presents and eaten most of the candy dug out of the far reaches of his stocking.

He blinked at the ceiling. Was it still there? Adulthood, the pain of it and the guilt of it. He fished around for it and found it hanging around his neck like a tight, tight noose, cellophane over his nose and mouth, and gagging him on his own embarrassment, his own fear of what had happened between him and Adrian. It was all dark now, and darkness never could be righted. The perpetual dark side of the moon. Except that Adrian was a Sagittarius, no moon strangely placed, no ruling planet but the wideness and scope of far-reaching Jupiter. Shawn had looked at Adrian's astrological chart once, at Adrian's request after Shawn had gotten his first bullshit essay on astrology published online. "You want to do this for a living?" Adrian had asked when the reading of the chart came to an end, and the two were sitting on the bench by the beach, the bench where they always sat and their conversation unfolded naturally, rolling like the waves hanging out of their reach. "Seems like the work you do for the cops is good enough. But, yeah," he looked at the chart Shawn had given him on his phone, the screen dark against the heaviness of the sunshine, little glyphs meaning nothing, broken into "houses," twelve of them, meaning nothing to him but easily interpreted by Shawn. Easily and deftly and eerily. "Yeah, you're scarily spot on. Psychic pineapple god."

Shawn might've let his first impression of Adrian, at the queue at Vons, the one on the west side of Ventura, slip one night between them. When they thought it'd be funny to talk about that first meeting and relive it and color it. And now they called one another little gods. Pet names, rich in detail and intimacy.

Shawn winced, the pain searing through him. That didn't matter. It was gone. He'd been overthrown as the Psychic Pineapple God. Humiliated. Debunked. And frauded by someone he'd thought was so wonderful. Kind, not nice. Loving, but paranoid. It was all there, though, draping through the background.

Shawn had let his intuition slip when it'd come to Adrian. He should've seen it. He should've seen it a mile away. He could've smelled it, like hot charcoal and flame, like haze, like the salt in the air before the rain sweeps across the coast. He'd noticed nothing. All his knowledge was based on hindsight, the worst gift of all. It only added to his regret.

He rolled to his side, eager to check his phone for messages and emails, but dreading it—the absolute silence, the horrendousness of loss. He knew in his guts, because his guts had never been wrong about Adrian, that there'd be nothing. No email, no message, no calls. It was over, and maybe today would be the first day that it actually felt like it was over. Somehow, he doubted it. His insides shook as he picked the phone off the coffee table, lit up the home screen. A message, yes—from Gus.

"Are you ok?"

It was sent an hour ago. It was nine in the morning. Gus had sent it before he went to work. Shawn typed back, "Yeah." That was all. No emojis, no jokes. Gus would know that Shawn was sincere, but Gus would know that his "yeah" was only partially true. No, it sucked, and he wanted Adrian back and he wanted it now and how did they even ever get to this point? His mind was already running thoughts—digging for the truth—trying to find out what was behind all of this loss. He was limited in who he could talk to about it, and what he could say. Gus had guessed a lot of it. That was Gus's way. Dad knew something, only that Shawn had lost his friend. Funny phrase, "lost a friend." Like Adrian had gone out to sea and disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. He was missing, or just his compassion and his sense were missing. Shawn was tempted to travel to one of the Gaddis vertices of the Triangle: Miami, San Juan, Bermuda. Just to see if it was true. He might find a vague outline of Adrian lurking in a cosmic ocean mist.

In the kitchen, Henry looked up to see his son padding on bare feet into the pale light of the sun-drenched room. His hair was on end, his plain white t-shirt crinkled, the hem crooked over plaid boxers that now looked a size too big. Henry didn't know what to think. He tried to stay away from Shawn's life, only get as close as Shawn would let him. It was a difficult thing to juggle. Shawn had come over yesterday evening, haggard and destitute, some waif from Dickens. Henry had just finished mowing the grass, which, Shawn thought, was too bad because he could've used an activity to get his mind off of things. Dad took his appearance well, and continued to show his maligned humor when it came to the difficulty Shawn ran into with his ramshackle place. MeeMee's Fluff n Fold was having its ceiling repaired, and could he please stay there for the night. MeeMee's, Henry argued, was always getting worked on, or flea-bombed, or bed-bug-bombed. You name it, the owners did it. Shawn spent more time away from his apartment than he did in it. Henry made the facetious suggestion that Shawn should start paying for the place by the day, not by the month. Shawn sneered, letting himself in the back door by the garage. Into that room, the kitchen.

Shawn yawned, rubbed his unstylish hair. He was off the couch. For now, that was good enough. He leaned against the counter, looked around. The same house—but different. Same Shawn—but different. Something was missing. Didn't the kitchen have stools once?

"Where are the stools?"

"The what?"

"Stools. Wasn't there a lunch counter, breakfast bar kind of thing back in the day?"

"I took it out. The stools are in the attic." Henry glanced at Shawn. He leaned against the counter, a wee wilted plant. Holding back a sigh, Henry continued lining up thick-cut slices of bacon in the cast iron skillet. This was not the way he imagined Shawn's life going. And not the way he imagined Shawn would look after a friendship breakup. He'd talked to Maddie about it yesterday, Shawn and Adrian's split. She'd advised him to be compassionate and cautious, to keep an eye on him. Shawn could get a bit ADD and manic when things got twisted. Shawn got that way when things were good, too. And breakups, regardless of what kind of intimacy the relationship had, were the hardest things for anyone to endure. Henry remembered when Maddie had left, what he went through. Yesterday on the phone they'd even reminisced about it, in a way, to help him understand what emotions Shawn might encounter. The phrase that kept bothering Henry was the one about the intimacy. What sort of intimacy? He'd almost asked Maddie, then couldn't bear to. She would've told him the truth, and he didn't want the truth. He just wanted to make Shawn feel better. It didn't matter, anyway, since Adrian wasn't coming back. Every time he thought of that phrase, though, a JJ Cale song sped through his head.

What Shawn needed was a good breakfast and a case. It wasn't that Henry Spencer wished one of Santa Barbara's denizens to die under mysterious circumstances. A burglary—a jewelry heist—a missing dog—_something _to bring Shawn around. Zombie Shawn was heading into his third day of unquestioned existence. Maddie had hinted that it might take a lot of time for Shawn to get his bearings. Henry mentioned the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. As far as Henry cared, Shawn could stay in the stage of anger all he wanted. "You do realize, Henry," Maddie had said, "that the Kubler-Ross model is for _patients _going through a diagnosis of terminal illness, right? It wasn't designed for this sort of situation. He's a human who just lost someone. He's our human that just lost someone, our boy. It's not going to be denial, anger, and so forth. It'll be a roller coaster. _His _roller coaster."

With bacon.

Henry put eggs, over-easy, on a plate along with strips of bacon and buttered toast. He handed it to Shawn, who stared at it as if he didn't know what it was. "You have to eat, Shawn. Your boxers are practically falling to your knees, you've gotten so skinny. And no one needs to see that or the rest of you."

Shawn held the plate, still staring at it. Conversations he'd had with Adrian waved in and out of his conscious. About anything. The day they first had breakfast together. With bacon. Shawn could feel his insides crumbling. He didn't want to eat. He made jokes instead. "Actually, I'm pretty sure these are Lassie's boxers." He was pretty sure they were, too. They weren't Adrian's. He didn't wear boxers.

That made Henry snicker. "Do I even want to ask how you ended up with them?"

"I sneak into his house to use the laundry sometimes. His fabric softener is the good, expensive kind that smells nice. I like smelling like an open meadow after the rain. Wait. No. That's his body wash. The fabric softener is peach-like. Is there a word for that, peach-like?"

"Sounds peachy to me."

"Anyway, it's the only part of Lassie that I can really stand."

"The smell? Yeah, I've heard that a lot before."

"Well, you got to hand it to the guy, he dresses nicely and he smells nicely."

Henry reflected on what he and Shawn had just talked about. Something didn't sit right. "Wait a second! Sneak in? Shawn—!"

"Relax, Dad. I have a key."

"Willingly bestowed on you by Carlton Lassiter? I doubt it."

Shawn maneuvered away from answering that question. "I go in and water his plants. Make sure the toilet paper roll isn't empty. Things like that."

"You trying to tell me that you're his maid?"

"More like his Girl Friday, just the ghostly edition. Where did you get these eggs?" He wanted to drag them away from talk about Lassie's place. Shawn loved that house. Lassiter hadn't lived there very long, boxes were still everywhere, and nothing hung on the pale white and gray walls, the bookcases were mostly empty of Civil War tomes, the Shaaras, and Murakami. It was a place Shawn felt at home. More than this home, with missing bar stools and the missing spirit of nine-year-old Gus running up the driveway to the back door, missing Mom's perfume leaving its lily fragrance behind. "Clark's farm?"

"Good guess," Henry said. "You're right. You know your eggs." A brief pause, Henry considering options. Only one was louder than the others. "Hey, at least sit at the table, would you?" He was surprised that Shawn did so without a protest or quip. Once he was in the opposite chair, and had peppered his eggs, he took a chance. "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine," Shawn grumbled, poking tines against eggs. Hungry—not hungry—he didn't know. It was like he was out of touch with his humanness. He hadn't slept fine, that much he knew. Waking a lot, dozing, dreaming, nightmares, awake—cycle, cycle, cycle. The moon, the sea, Adrian in the water and lost in the Triangle but right there, so close, a miasma between them and unbroken by countless apologies and murmured spells.

"I told you not to sleep on the couch. I told you to sleep in your old room. You could've—"

"Do you know how old that mattress is? Has more lumps than homemade mashed potatoes. I was also lazy and didn't feel like putting sheets on it."

"Well, there's really only the one set, and they've been in the laundry room for I don't know how long."

"There you go. Not only would I have needed to put sheets on the bed, I would've needed to do, like, a whole load of laundry. Ain't nobody got time for that. So, see, Pops, the couch is better. I've gotten used to couches."

Henry didn't doubt it. Shawn had once lived a very nomadic life. It was a worry that those days might come again. Shawn had established himself well in Santa Barbara. Carte blanche and all with the police department. The whole psychic thing was a bit weird, but Henry had developed an understanding, not with Shawn, but with himself, regarding Shawn's exclusive abilities. But Shawn was friends with Gus, and Gus was glued to Santa Barbara. Shawn had a few other friends, too. Henry couldn't name them. See their faces as vague, fuzzy things from twenty years ago. He'd never been great naming Shawn's friends. That'd really been Maddie's thing. As to how Shawn got along with the detectives, Lassiter and O'Hara, Henry wasn't entirely sure. Better with Lassiter than it appeared, if it was true that Shawn spent time at Lassiter's place. Shawn, Henry recalled, had helped find that house for Carlton, too. Before it was officially on the market, Shawn was telling Lassiter about it.

"What?" Shawn sensed tension buckling the air.

"Nothing," Henry said, a false start. "Just, I don't know, I don't want you to get used to sleeping on couches, that's all. Don't you have a place?"

"I have a place." He just didn't want to tell the truth about that place right now. And he didn't want to eat. Maybe—maybe he didn't want to eat. The bacon could stand up on his own. Dad knew he liked it that way, almost overdone. He took a testing bit from the strip tip. Everything was flavorless, sand against his tongue. He struggled to swallow. How long would it take Dad to figure out that no one was actually working on the cracked ceiling at MeeMee's? A day or two, maybe. He couldn't sleep on that couch forever. But, how to phrase it? It hurt, these deep and agonizing vulnerabilities. He needed something to do. Dad was always giving him chores.

"Hey."

Henry raised his gaze. Shawn was about to say an important thing, he could tell by the hesitancy, the way Shawn moved his lips over his teeth before he formed words. The struggle to find those words made him twitch.

Shawn couldn't do it. He settled. He hated settling. "Did you clean out the gutters yet?"

Damn, Henry thought, Shawn _really _needed a case. Anything—anything at all was better than this weird, helpful Shawn who slept on the couch, obeyed his father's commands, and offered—_offered_—to do chores. This required desperate measures. Henry knew he would have to do the unthinkable and call Lassiter.

-x-

"This is Detective Lassiter."

"Hey. It's Henry. Henry Spencer."

Lassiter was thrown. Sitting at his desk at 12:15 PM on a quiet Wednesday, the last thing he expected was a call from Henry Spencer. Well, that could only mean one thing. "What's he done now?"

"Nothing, actually, and that's why I'm calling. I guess."

Since his early retirement, Henry wasn't known for spilling his commands with the same viciousness that he used to. Carlton remembered that aggression well, as a rookie cop who'd come to that precinct, not fitting in and nominally frightened half the time. Now he'd known Henry Spencer a lot longer than most of the cops in the station. Carlton was aware of Shawn's absence, and Shawn's last text haunted his waking thoughts. "I haven't seen Shawn prowling around here in a few days. Another one of his famous sinus infections?"

"No."

"Injured?"

"I don't know."

"At death's door?"

"I hope not."

"Then I don't know what I can do to help." Yet, part of Lassiter did want to help. And why? Why did he want to help? Because the last text message he'd received from Shawn, on May 5th, was one word, and one word only, and had no emojis or funny cat gifs accompanying it. All he said was "yeah." Lower-case, too. "yeah." Yeah.

"That's why I'm calling. For help. Do you have a case?"

"A case?"

"Anything. Anything at all. Shawn needs a distraction right now."

"Why does he need a distraction?" Carlton asked. "Frankly, if a bird flies overhead, he's distracted. It's true, Henry, I've seen it. And I don't even want to know what happens when he sees a butterfly."

Henry snickered. "I think it's going to take more than birds and butterflies this time, Lassiter."

"I didn't even know butterflies would work. That was just a guess. Good to know for the future. What'd you have in mind? There's not much going on. No homicides, and the whole town seems to have fallen into an insipidness. Neighbors helping neighbors. Kids helping old people cross the street. You get the idea."

"Cats and dogs living together? Yeah, I get it."

"I do have a thrilling report about a stolen bicycle."

That wouldn't really do. Henry, outside on his cell, kept checking over his shoulder to be sure Shawn wasn't approaching. Shawn was on the opposite side of the yard, throwing leaves and natural debris from the gutters, now on the grass, into a big brown bag. Cleaning gutters could only take so much time, and the task neared its completion. Shawn had gone around and tossed into the bag any lawn detritus he could find. He really was being uncommonly helpful. "Well, listen, can I send him over? Just tell him that you called while he was on the roof?"

"On the roof?" Lassiter realized he was repeating a lot of what Henry said. "I have to say, this is one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had with you, Henry. Either of you. You Spencers. Why is Shawn on the roof?"

"Cleaning the gutters."

"He can come over to my house and clean mine. I won't pay him."

"You can tell him that. I heard you gave him a key. That was big of you."

Lassiter's jaw tightened. His hand wrapped around the phone cord until his fingers whitened, turned red with the stoppage of blood flow. He couldn't bring himself to lose his cool. Of course Shawn would have a key. Of all the senseless things in the world, that Shawn should have a key to Carlton Lassiter's house, yeah, that made sense. _Yeah_. Yeah. Ugh, the last text message gnawed at his brain. He hadn't seen Shawn since it was sent. He glanced at O'Hara, at her desk, and wondered if she and Gus had seen him. No? Maybe? Likely? No. Yeah. Shawn had a key to his house. Yeah. "Thanks," he pushed out in a hiss between teeth. "Um, what's going on with him, anyway? Not that it's my business, or that I care entirely. He sent me a very succinct and uncharacteristically bland text message."

Henry wasn't aware that the two of them texted. It brought new and interesting light to all the times Henry had seen Shawn's thumbs at work on his phone. Less, though, over the last few days, although they hadn't spent a whole lot of time together. More than they had in the last nine months. For once, Henry was relieved that he knew what was going on with his son. "He lost a friend."

"Ah," Lassiter said. "A falling out with Gus?" But, no, that couldn't be it. Gus had come in that morning, bringing O'Hara her cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich from Platypus Park. Lassiter had been surprised that Gus brought him a cup of coffee and a donut. Nothing had been said about Spencer the Younger. Gus would've said. O'Hara would've. Someone would've. They were all so wrapped up in the Life and Times of Shawn Spencer, that everyone at the station was bound to know Shawn's business. "No, not Gus. Who?"

Henry didn't want to tell him that, unsure what Lassiter knew and what he didn't. The text messages, though, prompted him to speak. Carlton and Shawn texted, so there had to be some sort of understanding or kinship or devil's advocate between them. "His friend Adrian."

"Does Adrian have a last name?"

"I'm sure he does, but I don't know it."

"Why not?"

"I stopped having to know the last names of Shawn's friends when Shawn became an adult."

"So, since yesterday?"

Henry cracked into a bitter laugh. "Okay, I walked into that one. I don't know his last name. He lives in Ventura. He's a lawyer. Property, real estate, I think Shawn said once. Or maybe his mom said it. She knows more than me. Look, Lassiter," this was getting uncomfortable, "can I send him to you or not?"

Carlton paused his typing into a search engine: Adrian, Ventura California, lawyer, property. The syntax revealed a lot of results. Tantalizing, this chance to snoop into Shawn Spencer's private world. It was payback time. "Yeah," Carlton said cheerily, "send him in. I'm sure we can find something for him to do. Tyas always needs help filing videos. Shawn's good at menial tasks."

For an unknown reason, Shawn could do mindless work without becoming too bored too quickly. No one was sure why this should be. Everything about Shawn screamed that only the opposite was possible. It was part of the contradictory package that was Shawn Spencer. Lassiter had a theory that the repetitive movement allowed Shawn's imagination to meander as it chose. And where it chose to meander, nobody but Shawn really knew. Carlton was glad that Shawn hadn't divulged where those meanderings went. Thinking about it made him gulp.

"Adrian Harris-Collins," Lassiter said into the phone. "That's him. I found his firm's website."

Henry held the name, etched it into a sort of visual representation in his brain, stored it for later, forever. "And that's why they pay you the big bucks."

"Right. So big that it looks like clown currency. He's been at the firm for five years. Went to school out east, nowhere significant, worked in a county prosecutor's office in Pennsylvania. Moved here to the firm of Robards and Tanner. Property lawyer, yep. Objectively good looking. Says he rock climbs and likes hockey. Or does that say honey? No, hockey."

Upon this rundown of Adrian's professional life, and a bit of his personal interests, Henry was unimpressed. He never found out how Shawn had met Adrian. It wasn't far-fetched that someone who worked for a police department would meet a lawyer a couple cities away. It happened. But Shawn didn't really make new friends. Those that he had now had been there for years. Henry guessed that Shawn dated, but no one hung around long enough or was special enough to meet the old man. Except Adrian. They'd gone fishing once, Shawn's idea, and Adrian had brought one of his cousins along. _So many cousins_, Henry remembered Shawn saying.

"Has no warrants or outstanding vehicle violations," Lassiter continued. "Drives a Mercedes, E-class. I can ask a friend at the department in Ventura if he'd check that Harris-Collins isn't, you know, illegally parked. Least I could do."

"That won't be necessary."

"Let me know when you change your mind."

Henry caught the word there, _when_. Not _if_. "Well, Shawn's almost done with the gutters. I'll tell him you called."

"You called me, Henry. Oh, wait, I get it. Yeah, send him in when you get the chance." Lassiter heard the voice on the end say bye, and hung up. He stared at the screen another moment, wincing, arranging details and information until he could find a thread to pull. But all he could really think about was that text message from Shawn, and then all he could think about was how many times Shawn had zipped in and out of his house without his knowledge.

A uniformed officer passed his desk.

"Hey, Dobson."

Dobson angled back, his dark hair crispy with product, his eyes soft and pleasant. Automatically, Lassiter examined the belt. An extra notch out today. Dobson's fluctuating weight was a source of amusement to many in the precinct. "What can I do for you?" Dobson glanced at the computer screen, not meaning to, but unable to stop the reflex. Lassiter X'd out the browser window. Heat hit Dobson's cheeks. He shifted on his tired feet, nervous about a forthcoming reprimand.

"If I gave you an assignment, would you do it for me? Without telling anyone. Sorta—unofficially."

"Sure." It was a relief to know he wasn't going to be reprimanded for glancing at the computer screen. He hadn't even gotten a good look at it.

"Would you, maybe tomorrow afternoon," Lassiter pored through case files on his desk as if it was an important part of what he was about to say, "go over to my place and just, you know, look around a little?"

"Sure. What would I be looking for? Signs of a break in?"

"No, he has a key."

"Oh. Wait. He?"

"Spencer. He has a key."

"Oh," Dobson repeated, smiling kindly now, as if he understood. Lassiter had given Shawn Spencer a key to his new house? Uncanny. Unexpected. But then the detective had become less predictable since Shawn Spencer started his psychic consulting with the department. Dobson wasn't the only one that noticed how much time Lassiter and Spencer spent together, especially since O'Hara had gotten engaged. And engaged to Gus, Shawn's best friend.

"It's not—not like that," but Lassiter's conviction deflated as he spoke. Did he really have to defend himself? No, he didn't. _yeah_. Lassiter rubbed his brow with roughness. Think, be sensible, be brave. "Could you just look for him? I mean when you're out on patrol. See if he's there?"

Dobson was getting more and more confused. "I don't get it. Should he be there, or shouldn't he be there?"

Lassiter peeled his eyes into the middle distance, thinking about that. The more he thought about it, the more he didn't know. Maybe he'd know when he saw Shawn again. His gaze landed back on Dobson. "Use your own judgment. Sound okay?"

"Yes. Yes, sir." Dobson gave a nod of his head before resuming his task.

Lassiter tapped the bottoms of a bunch of case files on his desk to make them into a nice, even pile. But his mind just flew back to the sorrowful response to his text. _yeah. _

_Hey, grilling out this weekend with some friends. Want to come?_

It'd taken hours for Shawn to get back to him. Lassiter had almost texted again to ask if he was still alive. After Henry's phone call, he probably should've.

_yeah _

But Shawn had never shown up. The weakness in the response was enough to make Lassiter cringe. Not with embarrassment that he'd actually _asked _Spencer to an event at his home, but with a sensation that had the flavor of mercy, of compassion. Maybe he'd known long before Henry's phone call that something was just a bit off about Shawn. It might take a whole lot to knock him down. Lassiter had a feeling that Shawn's buoyancy was being tested.

Lassiter found his phone in the slim drawer in front of him. As usual, no personal notifications on the lock screen. Only one, letting him know that the stargazing conditions that night would be good. He opened the little text box, and Shawn's tiny 'yeah' was still there. Like a mew from a kitten. Well, Carlton wasn't going to wait for Henry to deliver the message.

"There might be a case," he typed with adequate but slow thumbs. It was a lie, but desperate times— "You should come in."


	2. We Are Not A Codfish

II. We Are Not A Codfish

Shawn's back pocket vibrated. All senses were immediately on alert, but he was already telling himself that it was probably just Gus again. He'd finished this pile of gutter gunk, anyway, so he could take a second to say hi to Gus. It wouldn't be Adrian. It wouldn't be. Wouldn't be. Wouldn't be. Just as he took his phone out, his dad whipped around the corner.

"Lassiter called." Henry saw that Shawn was using his phone. For once, Henry wanted him to. Any small message from one of his friends might cheer him up, snap him out of his funk. Rather than tell Shawn what Lassiter "wanted," Henry rolled down the top of the brown lawn bag.

Shawn bit his bottom lip. The screen lit up. The message wasn't from Gus. And not Adrian. Anxiety, gripped by sadness, poured through him. His voice was steady and smooth. "It's from Lassie."

Henry thought that was interesting timing. Perhaps between their scam to get Shawn into the station and the time Lassiter shot a text at Shawn, a real case had fallen on the detective's desk. "What's he say?"

"He wants to know what I'm wearing."

Henry clearly saw that as a joke and produced the proper amount of scathing fatherly laughter. "Please."

It was easy humor, the kind Shawn could create then. Anything more intelligent would have to wait a while. "He says there's a case and I should come to the station." Shawn tucked his phone away, ambivalent. There was a heavy lawn bag to move, first. Priorities. Adrian had said Shawn didn't have them, and Shawn was keenly aware of his faults. But Adrian hadn't wanted excuses. He hadn't wanted anything but to get away from him. It hurt. It burned. It wasn't getting any easier. "I got this, Pop. Don't need to be hauling shit like this around at your age."

"Shawn!"

"Sorry, it just slipped out." Henry didn't appreciate it when Shawn swore. "Although they say that on basic cable now, you know. Maybe even network TV. Don't watch it, of course, so there's really no way for me to be certain." About that and a lot of things. He half-carried, half-dragged the very full bag from the backyard and down the stumpy concrete driveway.

"No, not that, I don't give a shit about you swearing. You're old enough now that it doesn't matter. But if there's a case, you should go."

"Why?" countered Shawn. He stopped, son and father examining one another. Shawn involuntarily winced, subjecting his father's actions to scrutiny. What was really going on? He wouldn't put it past Henry Spencer to engage in surreptitious finagling in order to boost his boy's compromised self-esteem. But Lassie's involvement? Nah, too bizarre. Lassie cackled with delight if Shawn Spencer was humbled or emasculated. Or both at once. "What good could I do?"

"What good can you do?" Henry repeated, thrusting his hands out in imploring gestures. "You can do a lot of good! How many cases have you helped them solve over the last four years?"

"I really don't keep track," Shawn admitted. Gus kept track. He thought it was important. Shawn thought it a paltry detail. They had cute names for some of their more memorable cases, so they could talk about them, but that was as far as Shawn went to label them. He didn't need to remember everything, did he? He wasn't Barbara Gordon or Marilu Henner, he didn't remember every day of his life. He dragged-carried the bag to the end of the driveway. A mysterious truck would come by for it in the morning, and it would disappear. For a second, he envied the magically disappearing lawn bag. "Why do you want me to go so badly?"

"I want you out of the house," Henry said. Shawn probably wouldn't think it was a lie. It'd been said often enough in the past to hold a tone of truth in the present. "I want you off my couch for a little while."

"Huh," Shawn grumbled, investing no emotion in his reaction. His emotions remained elsewhere. That's where a lot of him seemed to be: Elsewhere. He took steps back to the house. It reminded him of taking out the garbage as a kid. That was something he could do, return to his kidhood. Maybe he could spend the day going through his stuff. It'd been a while since he cleared some of it away. He might keep objects that he hadn't thought of keeping, items that he wouldn't mind giving to Gus and Jules to hold on to when they started their family. He could do that. What did he need them for?

Or he could go to the station and see what was going on.

One sounded slightly less thrilling than the other. One held a steadiness. One held broken bones of his past, not of his future. What was it mom and Gus were always telling him? _Work on your future, Shawn_. They told him this! Him, a fake psychic! It was kinda adorable and mildly insulting, which only amused him more. _Work on your future, Shawn_.

He really should've done more with his life. Considering how he'd started out, it wasn't so bad. For the most part, he was happy with the veers and steers of his existence. This was probably just one of those big dips that came along once in a while, kept his arrogance in check, and reminded him that not everybody wins. Certainly not him.

Without saying anything to his dad, he threw on his helmet and started the bike. Henry stood in the driveway, hands on his hips, and watched Shawn disappear around the corner. It was the wrong turn to head to the station. That didn't mean that Shawn wouldn't get there eventually.

"He went out," Henry texted to Maddie ten minutes later. "He'll go see what's going on at the SBPD. Don't doubt it."

"One thing I've learned about our boy," she replied, "is that he really enjoys taking the scenic route to his destination."

True, Henry thought. Damn true.


	3. Teach Me To Sing

III. Teach Me To Sing

Lassiter and O'Hara were working on different tasks. Vick, standing before the vast windows of her office, slatted with horizontal mini-blinds, could see them, her prized detectives. Lassiter at his tidy desk, keeping it immaculate with his compulsive movements to fulfill OCDs while going through paperwork—and O'Hara, messier, more eccentric, more empathetic but just as deliberate in her investigative maneuverings as her mentor, the head detective. Vick's mouth twitched. She wondered how long they'd be there. She herself hadn't existed in her position very long, had she? It seemed like yesterday, pregnant with Iris and arranging personal items in her new office. Her own OCDs, her own way of doing things, arranging things. Even the prized detectives.

It was peculiar, Lassiter's lack of personal items on his desk. Even while still married—Karen couldn't pretend to remember Lassiter's ex-wife's name—no photograph of her was set on display, like a work of art, an achievement in Lassiter's life that, clearly, not everyone got to claim. The desk was void of personal objects, until a few weeks ago when a small succulent appeared between the telephone and the computer. She tried to catch Carlton watering it, but he seemed to do it at some point when no one watched. Displaying concern was a vulnerability. He didn't want to show that he cared about a thing that needed him to survive.

She'd asked him where it'd come from, one morning when they were about to go over a quickly solved burglary case. Another one of insurance fraud that Shawn Spencer probably would've been able to determine in thirty seconds, not thirty hours. But Karen forced herself, that time, to stand close to Lassiter's desk. He was prickly, that was certain, and she gave an internal wonder that he should have a smooth-leaved succulent, with pudgy, dark ovate leaves, instead of the obvious xerophyte that mirrored him so well: a cactus.

"It came from the plant store," Lassiter answered, looking up at her through his lashes, below his eyebrows, and his eyes looked more gray than blue that morning.

She saw a boyish hint of pink in his cheeks, an iciness in his gaze just before he dropped it. Was he lying? A stampeding lie. Why lie?

Lassiter had probably just guessed that the plant had come from the plant store. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe it'd been a gift and he didn't want to say from whom. The last time Shawn was in, Vick caught him caressing the succulent with a gentle forefinger. He had a way of treating living things like they were all tired, adorable kittens. Even Lassiter.

"It looks good here," Shawn had said, before Vick reached the desk and the two of them clammed up. Not a stretch for Carlton, but he shot out of his desk chair as if sparks had flown from his butt. Shawn, meanwhile, was aloof and somber. She hadn't seen much of him lately. The plant had appeared between one of Shawn's long absences.

Then again, as Chief of the Santa Barbara Police Department, she was hardly there every second of the day. She came in at nine, unless she needed to be there earlier. She left at five or six in the summer, when the evenings were slightly longer. She left at four or five in winter, unless she needed to stay later. She couldn't and wouldn't keep track of Mr. Spencer's comings and goings. That was really Shawn's job. And, of course, a bit of Gus's, a bit of O'Hara's, and a whole lot of Lassiter's.

He wouldn't admit it, of course, but he knew more about what Shawn did in any given day than (could it be true?) Gus. Hate was a vehement and odd vine of a beast, springing from nowhere, taking you everywhere, even through the maze of someone else's existence. And it bestowed unexpected gifts.

Lassiter had his finger under the emerald ovate leaves, feeling the dirt to see if the plant needed a drink. Vick slowed her steps to his desk, watching him with intention. Lassiter was one of those curious human beings that was more fun to observe if he didn't know he was being observed. He seemed to exist in no natural state of relaxation. He was never really himself. She'd attended parties and cookouts with Carlton, with Juliet, even with the two of them and Gus and Shawn thrown in, and yet Carlton was always upright and stiff, a bit arrogant and a bit afraid of what lurked in shadows. Most especially his own. He could neither torture himself for his past wrong-doings, or praise himself for having done so much with his life, and become successful at what he'd set as a goal while still a child. A child who wanted to grow up and put bad people behind bars. He had nothing outside of that, though. Did he? A nice line of perfectly sharpened pencils, a tie with splotches of blue and gray against a black background that fit well with all the colorings of him: black and gray and blue. A dark gray suit with the faintest of lighter gray stripes, draped, not forgotten, over the back of his chair. And his shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the first time of recall that Vick had ever seen him do that voluntarily at the precinct (aside from that one time when the city toasted beneath a heat wave and the A/C went out). He teetered precariously, talently, between boredom and rage. But that was Lassiter.

"It looks good," Karen said of the plant. "I didn't think there'd be enough light over here in your little dark corner of the world, Carlton, but it seems to be doing well."

"Its needs are simple," he mumbled, then looked up at his chief. He rubbed his dirt-touched finger with his thumb, but the sensation was still there. He'd been achingly tactile lately. Wanting to touch different fabrics, wanting to walk around his yard with his shoes off to feel the cool grass and the hardness of the earth. He'd been a little weird. Shawn would probably say it was an eclipse or the wild side of the new moon, or a comet soaring too close to them. "Did something come down the pipeline? Do we have a case?"

"No," Vick admitted, trying not to wince for his sake. "I wanted to see if you'd talked to Mr. Spencer lately."

Lassiter didn't flinch. She'd done this before. It was her right. Shawn was an SBPD employee, of a sort. Sometimes he'd be gone for weeks. Sometimes they knew about it. Sometimes they didn't. "Only Spencer the Elder. I texted him."

Vick raised an eyebrow. "Henry Spencer? What about?"

Lassiter waved a hand casually, the dirt-touched one that still felt damp and cold. He wondered what it would be like to be an earthworm and slither through the dark, dark existence. "Uh, no. Shawn. I texted Shawn." He deflected before her jaw dropped further. "But I did talk to Henry. On the phone. He called. Said Shawn needed something to do. I asked him to come in. Shawn. I asked him to come in. I mean, at the very least, we could have him clean out the microwave in the break room. Or send him down to Tyas. He always needs help labeling files. You know how Shawn is with mundane work."

It was a baffling inconsistency. Shawn should not like to do mindless tasks, but he'd accomplished them with ease and without complaint. Vick wouldn't have believed it had she not seen it with her own eyes. Last year, Tyas and the whole video department had lost files. When they were found, buried deep in the computer, or all the computers (Karen never pretended to be tech-savvy), each label for each file had been erased. Shawn worked with Tyas and two others, going through each file, lining it up with this case or that case, filling out the labels with proper codes and case numbers. It'd taken two weeks, five days a week, ten-hour days. What Shawn had done for the police department then was invaluable. Vick even said that they wouldn't be able to repay him. Shawn had thought she was kidding. She wasn't.

Vick was just glad Shawn was coming in. It wasn't like Lassiter to draw Shawn in, though. Her Captain's intuition tingled. "Lassiter," she said wryly, as if lassoing him into a conspiracy, "what's going on?"

"I don't know what you mean," he answered, every word honest. She could mean any number of things. He wanted her to be more specific.

"You want me to be more specific?"

She read his mind as well as Shawn. "If you wouldn't mind. More words, please, Chief."

That brought a smirk to the corner of her mouth, a hint of light variable in her eyes. It fell into shrouded chaos and maternal concern. "With Shawn, I mean."

"Why not ask O'Hara?"

Damn, Carlton was excellent at deflecting. He was a grand master. It didn't even take him a second to think of how to do it. He just did it. With ease. "O'Hara is getting married in a few months. I think her mind's on other things. And Shawn's not one of those things."

O'Hara's major concerns at the moment were whether she should have cupcakes or cake at the reception. Carlton had heard arguments for both. He was in favor of cupcakes. They traveled well. Multiple flavors could be available, pleasing everyone. They went well with the coffee bar already part of the plan. He rapped his fingertips on the desk, still able to feel it, that little bit of dampness and little bit of chill from the succulent. It'd appeared on his desk one day, out of nowhere. But it smelled like Shawn. Lassiter had gotten close enough to know that. Shawn had a smell, cold and metallic one moment, then the rays of summer's sun against a rain-cooled valley the next.

He went back to thinking of cupcakes. It was easier. The thought of Shawn loitering in his house, rubbing against his things, running his soil-dampened fingertips along the spines of his autographed Michael Shaara books—it burned. It burned like Shawn bearing down on a rain-cooled valley.

Cupcakes. Yeah.

He'd nearly forgotten what Vick had asked him. What was going on?

"Well," he started, lingering on the word and trying to form the parts that were to come in the future, "for now, I don't know. Henry said Shawn's been going through something. Something emotional."

Vick was shocked to hear this, standing upright suddenly, her mouth winched tight. Her widened eyes pleaded him to continue. Shawn never got hurt. He was the master of resilience. A monster of conceit. He was sweet and indelible and nothing existed that could harm him.

"I didn't ask for particulars," Lassiter clarified. "If it makes you feel better, he has a key to my house and he can come and go as he pleases. Mostly, he just waters the plants."

Which he'd figured out between the end of Henry's phone call and the appearance of Vick next to his desk. He had three succulents at home, awarded to him in the custody of items between him and She Who Did Not Remain.

Victoria didn't want to fiddle with plants. "They're really your thing, Carlton. What'd I ever do but try to kill them? Unintentionally. I'm sorry, but it's true. I'm a serial killer of xerophytes."

Like other hinted and lost dreams. Vagaries beyond the fronds. Cries in the night from bad dreams, Saturday morning cartoons and pancakes, lost Sunday afternoons teaching the little vagaries to fish and to enjoy the outdoors and to love their parents no matter what.

His hand squeezed into a fist. Vagaries. She Who Did Not Remain.

Shawn watered the plants. This explained a lot. Carlton, in his care and concern for the only living things that clearly gave a shit about him, tried to water them a few days ago, only to find that they were perfectly damp. He thought the house was an arid desert, but perhaps it was more tropical. He'd tried to water them last week, too, but again found them perfectly damp. It was a peculiar thing. Shawn was responsible for that. For the towels always being clean in the kitchen, the bathroom. Always folded properly. The countertop always clean. The pillows on the new couch always fluffed. The wrinkles gone from the bedspread even though he sat on it every morning, after it'd been hastily made, to put his socks on. It was hidden there, Shawn's presence. It rested in the lack of dust where there should be dust. It was in the cleanliness of Egyptian terrycloth cotton in steel gray against bone white tile. It was in the dampness of soil against his fingertips.

He who did remain. He who did linger.

Once, Lassiter realized now, he'd caught that smell. Shawn smell. Whatever it was. He'd caught it, dishing it off as a figment of his imagination, as something strong and confusing that lay buried in his past, upbraiding his future, swinging through his present.

Swinging down the hallway with a slowness never seen before.

"You can ask him yourself, Chief," Lassiter said, bobbing his head and holding his gaze on the nearing human object of their conversation.

Vick turned around, sad to be broken with the intimacy Lassiter was close to conveying. She could sense it. But she was more pleased, or relieved, to see Shawn. Until he came closer, that is, until she could see that he looked haggard and roughened. "Someone roll you around in sandpaper?"

Shawn held her stare, and his eyes were vague and full of unforgettable words. Quickly, Vick scanned Lassiter. He'd known something like this was going on, and wished, ridiculously, that she'd been warned. Emotional issues? It was unthinkable that something existed that'd harmed Shawn. In him lurked intelligence that shouldn't allow the nonexistent to hurl him into darkness.

She couldn't quite read Carlton's expression, either. "Good to see you, Mr. Spencer."

"Thanks." Shawn pushed the word out. If he'd been more himself, he might've thrown out a guess as to her middle name. He'd known what it was for a while now, but he liked the game of pretending he didn't. It seemed more Shawn Spencer if he pretended to be an idiot. People respected him more, weren't afraid of him. And it was better for Gus, who, perhaps, deserved more of the accolades for his intelligence than Shawn did. But he'd never told Gus the chief's middle name: that was for Shawn to know, pretend not to know, and for Gus to find out if it interested him. (So far, it didn't.) Shawn appreciated the fact that it wasn't one of the obvious choice: Catherine, Cecelia, Cordelia, Credenza. Had he guessed Credenza before? Probably. He looked through the whole "C" section of the dictionary sometimes just to brush up on C words to use as guesses, when in the humor to pull one from the folds. The dictionary had been Lassiter's, though, at his house. And Shawn became mesmerized by Carlton's collegiate steadiness: his inclination to underline the trickier words he must've come across in his studies, hadn't known the definitions of, and underlined with a straight, super-straight, black or blue line of ink. One or two were red ink, but Shawn tossed that off as a fluke. Lassiter wouldn't abide red ink, really. It wasn't the standard. He hated O'Hara for using purple, green and pink Pentel RSVPs. O'Hara, still a fresh detective, had been so terrified of Lassiter's demands of ink color that she'd given her purple, green and pink RSVPs to Shawn, and used only black medium-point RSVP RTs.

His mind was broken thus. To tangle itself into anything disconnected with his loss.

"I heard there might be a case."

It was then that Vick knew how Carlton had gotten Shawn into the building. Just as well. Shawn needed something. If Carlton had dug through the cold case archives to find one, Vick wouldn't have doubted it. The surprise she got seeing the look on Lassiter's face, when he stared at Shawn, was enough to lead her away. Nothing in the world could've torn her from that except her own sense of propriety. She felt like she was watching an intimate and sorrowful thing, and couldn't bear to see how it went on, how it ended.

"I'll leave you to it," she said, patting Shawn on the shoulder. "It really is good to see you. Stop in before you go if I'm still here."

"Yeah," Shawn said. He watched her step away, and looked back to Lassiter. It'd been a while since they'd seen each other, that was true, but even he couldn't use that excuse for the way Lassie was looking at him then. What was it? Compunction? Concern? He'd known Lassiter had probably been lying about the case. But why ask him to be there, and why lie about it? He stuck his finger beneath the emerald ovate leaves, and met the cool softness of damp loam. "You've been taking care of it."

Lassiter tilted forward. His heart had stopped hammering in his chest, at least. He'd caught his breath again. He understood that Shawn had said a mundane thing about the succulent he'd brought in at an unknown date. Unknown to all of them. His throat felt thick and his eyes were heavy. If he'd known what sort of state he would find Shawn in, he would've never asked, never lied. Why did he have to lie? What good would it do, now? But it was too late. He'd seen what he'd seen in Shawn and there was no undoing of it. He blinked, as if trying to reset the image. Undo it, he begged himself. Undo it, undo it, undo it! Now!

But it was too much, and it etched into his memory like the last haunting text Shawn had sent. _yeah_.

He'd seen that dead and miserable look before. It was the expression of heartbreak, heartache, and sorrow enough to fill the galaxy. If no one else knew what sort of friend Shawn had lost, Lassiter knew. He could read it there, heartbreak, heartache, sorrow. He'd seen it before. In himself, of course, in mirrors he wanted to smash but restraint and a hint of superstition made him live with. He saw it in himself within the shadow of She Who Did Not Remain, when she did not remain.

She did not remain. Adrian did not remain.

Lassiter felt his hands shake as he held his chin up with a palm, but that didn't work, didn't work at all, and he couldn't relax for all the wrong reasons. Damn, that heartache. That miserableness. He wanted to ask Shawn a million questions, unformed and delinquent, embryos of this new and startling revelation. Did Shawn not want him to know? Who else would know? Surely his father could see that anguish on his son's face and know what sort of relationship had sprung between Shawn Spencer and Adrian Harris-Collins. Lassiter could see it. Plain as day. As plain as Shawn filling up the rain-soaked valley with his brightness, his unrestrained luminosity. If he could get it back again.

Shawn thought his throat was dry. The precinct seemed dry. He knew Lassie had lied to bring him there, and it was sweet in a way. He glanced at O'Hara's desk. It was empty. It was almost two and she was probably on a break. He'd fixed the toaster last week, before Adrian left, and there'd been a splurge of Pop Tarts consumption ever since. Weird to think about a time when he and Adrian were still something to each other. Just last week. Just last Thursday. He needed to think of the present. Not last week. "Did you water this recently, Lass?"

Carlton just eyed him. The two of them finally latched gazes. Carlton read it. A chorus of broken sentiments and mismatched words.

Shawn felt it, too. Sympathy? No, empathy. Holy shit, empathy from Carlton Lassiter. What was the world coming to, that it could make him lose Adrian through stupidity and pride, and that he should find commiseration from the blue-eyed glare of one glacial detective?

Shawn's neck began to heat the moment Lassiter formed a small smile. It poked at his conscience. _Lassie knows_, it told him. His insides froze. For the first time in ages, Shawn didn't know what to say. He didn't want Lassiter to know so much about him. It was a bad idea coming in before he was ready. He shouldn't have come in until he was sure it didn't show.

It was too late.

"Yeah," Carlton mumbled. He shifted files around on his desk. He tried not to stare, but it was there as sharp as anything. He just found out more about Shawn in the last twenty seconds than he had in the last four years. "Yeah," he repeated, drawing their stares together again with a hint of warmth and gallantry, because he wanted Shawn to understand how that last text message had haunted him. He wanted Shawn to know that he knew, that he didn't care.

Shawn gulped, sure that he was about to be in for the worst passive-aggressive, sarcastic and scathing onslaught of tasteless jokes that Lassie could subject him to. Instead, what he got was Lassie rising and grabbing his coat from its soft and limp position on the back of a stiff black chair.

"Want a donut? I was thinking of going over to Platypus and getting one for myself." Lassiter threw on his coat. It hid his gun. The Beretta. Italian. Beautiful. Kinda old but functional. Lassiter's first handgun. Shawn had found that out somehow.

"I'm really more fond of their almond kringle."

Lassiter's eyes brightened. "Yeah, me too." Maybe that was what Shawn smelled like, almond kringle? Sweetness, nuttiness. It sounded like Shawn's personality, not his personal smell. Lassiter tapped him at the elbow, getting them to move along toward the main doors, down the hall, past the desk, down the stairs. Shawn came, walking slowly. He knew that as a sign, too, well-versed in depression's physical manifestations. Slowed motor skills, slowed speech, as if hunting for syllables just out of reach, left in dreams, left to slumber behind the wall that separated him from previous happy days.

Lassie knew that feeling, and Shawn finally understood how it'd come about, the veils between them shredded. It exposed them to the past. They had something in common now.

"Lass," Shawn started, when they were sitting at a table on the patio outside the cafe, almond kringle crumbs on bone white china plates, like the bone white tile in Lassiter's bathroom at the house on Sunberry Lane. Shawn poked at crumb with the tip of his forefinger. A piece of the glaze, hardened. It softened against the warmth and moisture of his tongue. "How long does it last? This phase. Numbness. Humiliation. Self-hatred. How long do I have?"

Lassiter wanted to tell him the truth: forever. But even he couldn't say that to Shawn. They'd lost their resistance. They had too much in common now. Lassiter wished he could undo it. Not seeing it Shawn, that might be more useful than it seemed, but wished he could undo it for Shawn's sake. "Depends," he said, sucking in a breath, letting it go.

Shawn failed to make it so easy. His eyes hardened, wincing against the sunshine. The afternoon was getting old. Another long day. Not the day when he thought it would feel like it was actually over. "Depends on what, though?"

"On what happened. Who did what. Who didn't do what. You know." Maybe Shawn didn't. But surely Shawn had been through breakups before. Hadn't he? Maybe Shawn hadn't. Lassiter wasn't sure. From what he'd culled, snooping through files, snooping through the internet and even making a couple of phone calls to places on the east coast, to places in Canada and Mexico, he'd learned that Shawn didn't stay in a single place very long. He'd moved a lot, held almost every job under the sun: cater-waiter (Seattle), deep-sea fishing boat guide (Florida), museum docent (Toronto), lighthouse keeper (Ohio), agricultural research assistant in the field of natural grassland (Saskatchewan; Kansas; Minnesota), cab driver (Savannah), lifeguard (Mazatlan), touring company of _42nd Street_ (summer, 2005), and so many more. That Shawn had stayed more than four years in Santa Barbara, his hometown, was peculiar. What kept Shawn there? And now it was as though Shawn had lost another reason to stay. Lassiter swallowed, his throat tight, and he sipped the remains of his coffee before going on. "Maybe you don't know. Haven't you done this before?"

Shawn pressed his tongue against the soft roof of his mouth. Holding on. Barely holding on. His arms crossed loosely in his lap. He wanted to get up again from his chair, go inside with Lassie's mug and ask for another refill. Lassie had let him the first time. Reluctantly. Now Shawn had to face it. "Nothing like this."

"How long has it been?"

What an odd question. Shawn attempted to gage what Lassie was getting at. He snickered instead, head dropping down, eyes landing on specks on the cement. A place he knew so well. Nowhere he'd ever taken Adrian, as if he'd known what would happen and he didn't want to be there with the memory of him, lingering like the scent of him. "Since Saturday." It stung again. He pretended to bite his thumbnail. He didn't bite his nails, just for pretend. "You don't ask me what happened. You don't ask me if it's someone you know. A girl. A boy. You don't even ask me how it happened. You sit there, Lass, cool and yet sympathetic, and you ask me how long it's been. How long has what been? What? Since I had my heart broken like this? Try never. Or when did it happen? The whole damn thing, when did it happen? You ask me that? That? Since Saturday. Saturday. And it's awful to think, isn't it? Before Saturday, everything was fine. It was all fine. And now here I am, sitting at my favorite cafe, with you, who's, like, my least favorite person in the world, after my dad and, if I'm being honest, myself, my favorite cafe in the whole world, and by now you know enough of me to know I've seen a lot of the world, and you ask me when it happened. You, of all people on this tiny, messed up sphere of ours. How long has it been? How long? You know the answer to that."

Lassiter did know the answer.

Not long enough.

Lassiter wiped his brow, still tasting almond kringle and coffee, still catching scents of Shawn, of the sea. "Do you want to go back to the station, or would you like me to take you home?"

Shawn scoffed this pressure to make use of one or the other. He wanted to be taken to oblivion. There was no such place. Nowhere away from where he was. "Home? What home? Mee Mee's is a mess," he didn't add on to his growing lie about the ceiling being worked on, "and my dad's house is—is—old me. Young me but old me. What home?"

"Home," Lassiter said, calm as ever, and producing that which shocked Shawn, "on Sunberry Lane."

Shawn's eyes widened, sparkled, speckles of moonlight, flashes of stars. "You know," he felt like confessing, "I have a key."

"So I've heard. I don't even want to know how." He saw Shawn's face then and almost laughed out loud. "Yeah, okay, I'm dying to know how you got a key. But you can save it for later. Save it and tell me when you've concocted one of your really great stories, Spencer. Then I'll want to hear it."

He coaxed bills out of his wallet, and Shawn caught sight of twenties dancing amid the leathery darkness. Twenties, like he'd seen in Adrian's wallet when the two of them met. One of the fives Lassie had thrown against the tabletop tried to blow away in a sudden puff of breeze, but Shawn pinned it under the mug of coffee. A dribble spilled out the side and onto his thumb. Without thinking, he licked it off. If Lassiter noticed, he wasn't disgusted by Shawn's caveman manners. Lassiter wasn't disgusted by a whole lot. Shawn wondered why. It seemed like the kind of thing Lassiter would've hated to see in anyone. But why was he eschewing his standard meanness? Buying the coffee, the almond kringle, even allowing Shawn to take the bill to the register so it seemed like he was the big one, the important one, that one who had the money and means to leave a five-dollar bill in the big apothecary jar of tips.

There was so much Shawn wanted to explore. He tried to pick at Lassie's brain as they got back in the detective's cruiser. It was stifling, the sun inching closer to its summer closeness. Lassiter put the A/C on Max. Shawn's armpits still prickled.

"The key was easy to get," he admitted quietly. It was easy to say things like that. "How did you know?"

Carlton didn't want to divulge Henry's comments, or drag Henry into it at all. It was only through misguided kindness that Henry had said anything. "Little things. I think you wanted me to guess it was you gaslighting me. The watered plants. The clean towels. The fluffed pillows. The creases smoothed out of the bedspread. Those things."

Shawn knew he'd left tells. "The last thing I wanted to do was gaslight you. But I think I wanted you to guess it was me. What took you so long?"

Carlton lifted a shoulder. He took them the long way back toward the city. Shawn hadn't said yet where he wanted to go, and Carlton was content to drive on a couple of his favorite streets. Meandering in the car with Shawn, their destination nowhere. He thought of what he'd asked Dobson to do, check on the house tomorrow to see if Shawn lurked. He still wanted Dobson to do it. Dobson was a sucker for Shawn's histrionics, his charisma. Everyone liked Shawn. Carlton just wanted confirmation from someone else that Shawn was really there. And it might be fun if Shawn was just a bit gaslighted himself, the way he'd teased Carlton for weeks. "I didn't want to spoil your fun. Make you think you weren't welcome."

It was a backwards way, Shawn saw, of saying that Lassie had actually liked it, those treacherous, nearly treasonous visits of stealth. Shawn wasn't sure how to play this. Carlton was being nice to him, and that in itself was awkward. "Well, no secrets between us, I guess. You know more about me now than a lot of people."

"What about Gus?" Carlton had to ask. How deep was this secret? Deeper than his own? "Does he know? About you and Adrian."

Shawn took a second to answer. He looked out the window. Santa Barbara, he knew that, but where? What part? His built-in compass had been on the fritz since Saturday. His world spun faster than usual, slower than usual. Gravity was a great pressure in his gut. The Earth was all wrong, her agony as great as his, and he could feel her spinning into despair. "I can't believe there are parts of this town that I can't recognize by sight alone."

Lassiter was afraid Shawn wouldn't answer. He might've poked Shawn too deeply that time. He wanted more information than Shawn was willing to provide. But Shawn surprised him. Again.

"He knows." Shawn tilted his head against the window. He liked the sensation, the almost-warm window, the almost-frigid air whizzing through the car cabin. They intersected, these points of temperature, against a small patch of vulnerable skin on his forehead. He thought about Gus. "He's been trying to help, but he can't do much. I need what everyone needs in situations like this: answers, time. It's weird when you find yourself actually living the cliché, isn't it? Answers. Time. It's ridiculous. I'm disgusted with myself."

Because it was the most sense Shawn had ever made. "You didn't see it coming?"

It wasn't a dig against his psychic powers or anything. Lassie didn't play that game. Lassie had one goal: to find the truth. Shawn understood him. "I've been asking myself that same question ever since it happened. Did I see it coming? I don't know. I can see him pulling away. I can see his indifference. But I didn't want to see it. You can't see what you don't want to be there. As a cop, you know that."

"You're wrong there. As an ex-husband, I know that."

Shawn pressed his lips together. He fell into that one. "I saw it coming. I gripped too tightly. I squeezed him. He squirmed away. To freedom."

Shawn would tell him, Carlton figured, over time, across days and hours, Shawn would tell him what happened. For now, though, it was tapped. Carlton didn't want to think about Adrian Harris-Collins any more than Shawn Spencer wanted to think about Adrian Harris-Collins. "Where are we going? Home? Station? Somewhere else? It's been slow at work, so it's not like I don't have some time to kill."

"The station," Shawn said automatically. He didn't know why, but he wanted to go to the station. "I feel like I should be there. Besides," he threw Lassie's strong profile a quick glance, the curve of his chin and the flat bottom of his nose, the turns and angles of his browline, his forehead, his hairline, his neck that was always swallowed by a tight shirt collar, the noose of a tie. Shawn had seen Lassiter's tie collection, and it was a marvel to behold. "Besides," he repeated, having gotten lost in the thought of ties, closets, and knowing which side of the bed Lassie slept on, and how ironic that it should be the opposite side of his own personal preference, like they were born opposites: one at sunrise, one at sunset; one on the coolness of the moon, one on the heat of the sun, "it'd be weird being at your house with, you know, you actually in it with me at the same time. It might ruin the illusion."

Or add to it, Carlton stopped himself from saying. He drove until they hit a red light by the high school. They were close to the house, but not close enough to disobey Shawn's wish. It wouldn't be weird, the two of them being there together, at the same time. Carlton had had his friends over, Shawn included, when he'd bought the house and spent his first day there. Carlton sniffed, dragging down the turn signal to indicate the left he intended to take when the red arrow turned green. "You should've come the other night. When I texted you. The barbecue."

"Yeah," Shawn said, inadvertently bringing up the word he'd used to text Lassie his response to the invitation. "Yeah, I should've. I'm just not ready."

"To eat? You know I grill pretty well, Spencer. I do."

"I do believe in your barbecuing skills, Lassie, I do, I do!"

The Barrie paraphrase made Lassie smirk. "But?"

"But I wasn't ready."

At that, Carlton sucked in a short, shallow breath. He didn't let it go until he'd formed a response. The light turned green. The car inched forward. He let his breath out. "You never will be unless you make yourself ready."

For some reason, perhaps lack of sleep or just the insanity that accompanies the madness he'd been spiraling through, Shawn laughed. "That's cute," he said, reigning in his chuckles and letting silence hang between them. He hit a button to turn off the Max A/C. The loud whooshing stopped, muffled now in the vents. "Go ahead, ask me. I know you're dying to ask me." He didn't bother with the psychic histrionics. Like dining around friends, like being seen in public with more than one friend at a time, he wasn't ready. Just wasn't ready. "But you can ask me."

Carlton knew what Shawn wanted him to ask. For that reason alone, he didn't. "It's my turn to confess that I already knew that about you. I poked into your work history when you first started your consultations with us. You've worked a lot of gay clubs, that sort of thing. I wondered. Didn't ask, of course," he said cooly, "just wondered. You were at that nightclub in Veracruz for a long time."

Shawn remembered it fondly. He didn't elaborate on why he'd stayed so long, or for whom he'd stayed so long. It was Lassie's business, and now all of Shawn's personal details were Lassie's business, way more rapidly than Shawn had been prepared for, but he didn't want to tell everything. He got a feeling, though, that something wasn't right. "What about you? Kinsey-six? No. Maybe more like Kinsey-one. Drunken college parties, Lassie?" Shawn could tell he'd found the right kind of thread, and instead of pulling gently he tugged and jerked. It was what Lassiter's hands did against the steering wheel that gave it away. More than one regret there, and way more than one story. "Good," Shawn said, quiet again. "I'm glad you didn't marry Victoria just because she wanted to go to bed with you."

Carlton almost braked the car, crossed between appalled and engaged, weirded-out and offended. "Just don't even—"

"No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disrespect Victoria." Shawn bit his bottom lip and looked out the window again. At last, a block that he recognized. They were about to make the turn to the precinct parking lot. "No, for real, Lassie, I'm sorry. You don't know how I've been so careful of what I say the last few days. I don't ever want to say something that would hurt me the way I hurt myself."

"Shawn," he threw the car into park but left the engine on. He smeared his hands down his knees, palms sweaty. He felt like he needed a cold shower after this car ride with Shawn, the cup of coffee, the almond kringle. "It's going to take ages for the regrets to pass. Humiliation, too. Don't beat yourself up."

"He didn't do anything wrong."

"Yeah," Lassiter said, reaching out and actually patting Shawn on the wrist. In his eyes, he understood. Shawn grasped it there, too. "Yeah, he did. He really did."

Shawn lingered for a second, Lassie having already leapt to freedom. A waft of dry, faintly briny air swung in when Carlton opened and closed the driver's side door. He saw what Carlton had meant. Carlton—Lassie—had said it right. Correctly. He'd known because he'd been there. Victoria had done nothing wrong, had she? But she had. She had.

She Who Had Not Remained. She'd left him.

The passenger's door was hauled open, and Carlton voluntarily touched the top of Shawn's head. His hair was soft, kind of fluffy, a texture as surprising as the layers of Shawn's personality and predilections. "What do you want to do now you're here?" He shut the car door, locked the doors, when Shawn winced in the sunlight next to him. "I have a case about a stolen bicycle. Doesn't seem up your alley, Shawn, but it might do."

"What else you got? I solved a lot of stolen bicycle cases back in middle school."

Carlton smirked. He bet that was true. Shawn was part daredevil, part detective, with just a dash of psychic and psycho thrown in. He tucked his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Shawn had ironed them after Carlton had inadvertently left them on the bedroom floor after a particularly grueling day at work. He knew it'd been Shawn. It always was.

"There's a guy down in holding. Won't talk."

"Talk about what?"

"Anything. Won't tell us his name, where he lives. Nothing. Didn't want his phone call, either."

"What's he in for?"

"You know Englers' General Store over in Samarkand? Been there since the Twenties?"

"Oh, yeah. Old Speakeasy. Like at the Tanglevine Club. What about it? It's been closed since March."

"Yeah. He looted it last night. We'll have to let him go by this evening. Can't really charge him with anything. Social services came by this morning, checked his mental state."

"And what was this conclusion?" Shawn loved the smell of the precinct, as soon as he walked in it covered him with warmth and memories. His mom, his dad, Captain Connors, vending machines, furtive poker games, and Lassiter, the newbie, cleaning everything in sight. Shawn felt a flood of gratefulness for the longevity of these things. It'd taken him years of globe-trotting to appreciate it again.

"They haven't been able to tell. He doesn't talk. Maybe you could use your mojo on him."

"Mojo might be a little broken right now, Lass."

Carlton didn't believe that. After the last ninety minutes they'd spent together, there was no way mojo was even slightly broken. It was as wrinkle free as his ironed trousers. "You could try."

"I don't know."

That didn't sound like the arrogant prick that Carlton had met in auld lang syne. Not the kind that'd blatantly stolen a key to his house in order to press a pair of forgotten trousers, water the plants, sweep the patio, pile the mail on the credenza. "Shawn," he started to say, but then there was nothing more he could say. It was all that pain. Carlton felt it. He wanted to rip it out of Shawn and throw it away, give it back to Adrian in tiny, tiny bits that were worth as much as Carlton knew they really were. Shawn's heart had to be priceless, a thing worth winning, a thing worth holding on to. Because he was too mercurial, too estranged from reality, that winning it and gripping it had to be something really profound. It had to be life-changing. It had to change the whole world. "You can do this."

"I'm not sure." Shawn was reluctant, hating himself for it. This wasn't like him. He rubbed his face, his eyes, his fingertips burning against the heat of his face. "When am I going to get myself back?"

"Soon," Carlton insisted. "And this will help." They were still alone in the foyer. The business of the station was going on around them. There, it was cool and quiet, poised between two worlds: the labs and holding cells below the stairs, and the desks of ringing telephones, the quick paces of officers to and fro. Carlton pinched Shawn by his elbows. "Look. Spencer." He swallowed, conjured in his mind was the image of Shawn lovingly ironing a pair of trousers against a small ironing board. "Shawn. This is love and this is loss and it's always going to suck. The point is that you get through one day at a time, even an hour here and there will be a struggle. But you do it because you know you can. Because there are people relying on you."

"Who?" Shawn countered. "Who's really relying on me? Who really needs me?"

"All those cases you've solved," Carlton said, straining his fingers against the percale material of Shawn's messy over shirt, open, unbuttoned, revealing a black t-shirt with a smiling planet Earth on it, "don't do this, Shawn, don't make them meaningless, don't undermine yourself, your efforts, your talents, and those of us who've worked with you through the years. You are more than this."

Shawn didn't know if he should laugh because it was Lassie saying this to him, and meaning it, every breath of it, or if he should cry because it was Lassie saying this to him and meaning it. "I don't think I can do this. I can't do this. I just want to go into a dark corner of the world. I want to think about what I did wrong and what he did wrong. I want to spend as much time as I can talking myself out of loving anyone that hard ever again. That's what I want to do. But I can't. You're right. I can't make it all mean nothing. It wouldn't be fair."

"And that wouldn't be right," Carlton added. He let go of Shawn's arms. "Don't talk yourself into it. It's so easy to do, think you won't ever love like that again. And it'd be a sorry loss. And you know it." Carlton pointed toward the stairwell that led down into the holding cells. He was shaking but it didn't show. Shawn knew the way. He'd been there before, as a consultant, as a kid, as a criminal. "Meet me upstairs when you're done."

Shawn's shoulders were grabbed by Lassiter's hands as the two of them parted. That was when the shakes became noticeable. Shawn eyed the stairwell, wondering if he'd go and talk to the mute. It was worth a shot. Maybe a smudge of paint or a leaflet from a rare succulent stuck in a shoelace would be enough to find out who he was, what his problems had been. His problems might be so awful that Shawn's would be thrown into perspective. And why couldn't he just snap out of it? There'd be other lovers. Why did this one hurt so much?

All the things that Lassiter had just told him echoed in his head. His footsteps ricocheted off the cement stone walls. Enameled in pearly pale yellow. Lassie had a set of sheets that color. Shawn had washed them last week. He set his fingers against the cool stone wall, thinking, imagining, hearing the things he'd said to Lassie and the things Lassie had said to him. His phone blurted with a phone call from Gus. Shawn paused to answer before heading around the corner to the four holding cells.

"What's up, Magic Head?"

"Did I actually see you and Lassiter sitting on the patio at Platypus Park this afternoon? I pass it on my route."

"Yeah. You saw us." Shawn brought out a lovesick sigh to play up the spontaneous dining experience. "I think it's love, Gus. He finally asked me out!"

"Shut up," Gus shouted back. "That's gross. I'm supposed to have dinner with Juliet and her bridesmaids tonight, and I don't want to be sick."

"He paid. Brought me almond kringle and a cup of coffee. He knows the way to my heart."

"Please stop. You're freaking me out. But I gotta go. Tell me how this came about later, okay? Way after I eat, though. I'll call you when dinner is done. Where you staying tonight?"

"Don't know. Maybe Lassie's."

"Shawn."

"What? I'm not kidding. He sort of invited me. I think." Had he misread that? Had Lassie actually been that nice to him, or was Shawn's mental state reading compassion into the situation? "Maybe. Look, I'm at the precinct. I should get off the phone, too."

"Is there a case or what?"

"No, no case. More like a favor."

"All right. You'd let me know if there's a case, right?"

"I figured that would be the duty of your prospective bride, mi amigo."

"She's trying to keep her case load light right now, until after the wedding. Fine. Let's get off the phone, talk later. I'm meeting a new doctor today." Gus sounded proud of that fact. "Everyone wanted him, and I got him."

"Just like me and Lassie."

"You must be feeling better."

"Almond kringle does wonders."

"Yeah, no doubt about that. Remember when my throat was sore a few weeks ago, and you insisted that almond kringle would make me feel better?"

"I do recall that with unnecessary clarity, yes." He'd blown off a visit with Adrian to bring Gus that much-needed almond kringle. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Like a charm. I had to spend the next week and a half convincing Juliet that you weren't some kind of warlock."

"She's been on that for years. If you start believing something strongly enough, it comes true." Shawn thought about this with Adrian, everything he'd put himself through since Saturday morning. "Wait, no, I'm probably lying about that. Gotta go, Gus." If he didn't get off the phone, he might start revealing things. Deep things. Deeper than whatever had happened between him and Lassie the last ninety minutes.

"I'll call you later."

They said their farewells. Shawn returned his phone to the back pocket of his jeans, slipping around the corner to the coolness and dimness of the area known as "holding." Fernando, the officer on duty at the booking desk outside the door, hadn't done more than give Shawn the jock-nod of greeting and approval. Shawn Spencer had free reign, and the only places he hadn't gone in the precinct were the two ladies' restrooms, and the Super Secret Room off the conference room the next door down. Even his father wouldn't tell him what was in the Super Secret Room. Maybe it was just a supply closet. Maybe it was the center of interdimensional travel.

Shawn needed a second to spot the mute man. He was in cell two, the nicest of the four in that it'd been freshly painted three months ago, and the cot was newer. It was like the Hilton of cells.

As Shawn neared the cell to glean what he could from the man, he paused his steps. He gave the man lying peacefully on the cot a thorough inspection. His next step was cautious but necessary to make his grim determination.

"Fernando!" Shawn shouted, still staring at the mute on the cot. "Fernando!"

The officer from the desk surged in, hand at his holstered sidearm. He looked at Shawn, who pointed to the mute man in Cell 2. Fernando's fingers drifted from the weapon, and his mouth went slack. "Is he breathing? Shawn, I don't think he's breathing."

Shawn pulled out his phone. Overhead, Carlton's desk phone was ringing.

"Detective Lassiter."

"Lassie."

"Shawn?"

"Your mute guy, the one in Cell 2?"

"Yeah?"

"He's gone very, very mute because he is very, very dead."


	4. Cages Of All Sizes And Shapes

IV. Cages Of All Sizes And Shapes

Carlton didn't want to say what his loud thoughts were screaming: _Shawn found a dead body… Shawn found a dead body…_ Other thoughts rotated there, too, timid ones and uncertain ones and ones that reminded him of lollipops: round and round and sweet on sweet. Because it was the first time he'd ever seen Shawn saturated in confusion. Usually, Spencer utilized his arrogance and his—his _talents_ (for lack of a better word) to perpetuate this beautiful nonchalance. Spencer could reflect just about anything thrown his way. When worse came to worse, though, he knew it, and he knew when he was bettered by forces that rivaled his own. The discovery of a dead body was an entity Shawn couldn't shove aside with rich antics and adlibs.

Shawn had taken a seat in one of those convenient chairs that seemed to appear out of nowhere when one needed it. His lip curled upward, amusing himself with an anecdote he'd heard about royalty, kings and queens, and how a chair was brought to them by a with-it servant even if the royal butt started to float towards a yet-invisible chair. He'd found one like that. It'd been a long time since his legs shook and his insides squirmed. Officer Fernando, hanging nearby, was no comfort. Shawn waited to hear the footsteps of Lassiter, and if Lassiter happened to bring anyone else along, that was all right with Shawn. He just didn't want to be made a freak. Not that guy who'd found a dead body in the cop shop basement. _Please, anything but that!_

Such a descriptor would be intolerable. He used to have good times in those subterranean rooms back when he was a kid, coming in to see his dad, bringing dad's stinky tuna sandwich if it'd been forgotten at home. Dad might be so grateful that he'd forgotten the sandwich and take Shawn for fast food instead. And this was where he first met Lassiter, years and years ago, not that Lassiter remembered, not that Shawn could recall every detail, but it was a lovely stain resting in the past. All their meetings were like that: semi-forgettable splotches that contained an elusive element of beauty. In a certain slant of light, Shawn might've called those specks facula—bright spots upon the surface of the sun.

Shawn crossed his arms over his chest, took out his phone again. He didn't know who to call. The more he thought of trying to tell this to Gus, the more absurd it became. Everything he'd been through since Saturday had warped, anyway. Fossilized, oozed, melded into a blear upon the history of Shawn Spencer. He couldn't make any more sense of it while hanging in the presence of a dead body than he could Saturday, around noon, when the bottom dropped out of his world.

Lassiter still hadn't come down. It'd been three hours, surely. But, no—just thirty to forty seconds. No more. He didn't glance up again at the dead body, couldn't and wouldn't. Fernando failed to do anything that Shawn found fascinating. If it'd been a different day, a day before Saturday (for instance), Shawn would've found the unraveling scene a tantalizing treat. A look into the tunnel of a future case, perhaps. It would've meant something. Now it was just a dead body. Once a man, now The Body.

He scrolled blindly through contacts on his phone. He stopped at "H" and felt his skin crawl at Adrian's name, still there, blazing black text, a macula, against the bright white screen. He hadn't had the heart yet to delete it. _Someday_, he thought to himself. And maybe he'd never delete it. You can't be that crazy about someone, lose him, and then in five days when he decides to no longer explain, no longer bring you into the sphere of his reality, to delete him from your phone. As if that would destroy it all. The hurt would stay. It'd stay as long as it needed to, like the name in the phone. _As long as it needed to. _

Scrolling up and down through seemingly endless names, Shawn was amazed at those that popped up, caught his eye. Names of people he'd not thought about in years. First names with no last names. Last names with no first names. Who were these people? But he went by Adrian's name two more times. The chill came and went. That feeling of fear and sickness. He'd been putting it off for ages, because he'd known, somehow, perhaps his own gag of intuition and psychic abilities catching up with him, that Adrian wouldn't be around for long.

Shawn paused at a name, wondering—could he? Would he? If Lassiter did show up. What was the hold up? Maybe he'd stopped at the desk because there was some red tape to go through when a dead body was found in the holding cells.

Shawn tapped the name, held the phone to his ear. "Hi," he said when the end of the line was answered. "I'm at the station. Something happened. Can you come here? It's—it's—I can't explain over the phone."

"It's all right. You don't have to say anything. I'll be right over."

Shawn heard the beeping of the cut call. Just as he was staring at the dimming screen, not sure about his decision, footsteps rounded out the ambient sounds of the lower floor. Shawn sprang up, held in place by a passing Fernando. He was six-four and weighed, like, another whole person more than Shawn, so he thought it appropriate to wait his turn. He caught a glimpse of Lassiter. The commanding presence and the coolness carried with the detective raised Shawn's wilted spirits. He felt less alone, anyway, being in an echoing cement-walled room, celled, with the least-known officer in the SBPD fleet.

Lassiter wanted to glue his eyes on the corpse of the mute, shimmying aside Fernando's explanations, but finding himself stalling at Shawn's quietness. Well, there was a dead body, yes. The man was neatly arranged on the cot. The style in which he lay reminded Carlton of sculptural monuments left near the vaults of the entombed body. Peculiar, to say the least. He flicked his eyes to Shawn's. "You all right?"

Shawn nodded, itched the side of his head to fidget. He'd grown a little restless waiting in a room with a dead body. "What took you so long?"

Carlton had his mouth hanging open, the first syllable poised there, but his intention to reply was intercepted.

Vick propelled herself into the room, taking immediate command. Shawn had his answer to Lassie's delay. She stared at the body.

"So, Mr. Spencer, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Shawn didn't think she really wanted him to say a damn thing. He waited a beat, glancing again at Lassie. He was remarkably calm. Shouldn't he be pointing fingers, saying, _My God Shawn what have you done now?_ Yet none of that. None of that at all. Their tiny chats flooded back to him, turned up the heat in his cheeks and flamed the tips of his ears, ignited the back of his neck. Was he blushing, or embarrassed? Neither? Lassie knew way too much about him, and now, among others who knew not enough, Shawn wondered what else he'd let slip through the years. What else did Lassie know? Where else had his "wondering" taken him?

He was saved from carrying on in psychic fashion by Vick's short attention span. He'd never been so pleased to see it. She unleashed her fury about her stock of officers, even Lassiter. She flung out orders. They took them. Finally, when Lassiter had gone, and Shawn noticed his hesitancy, Vick spun and glared at her consultant.

"Come with me."

Shawn followed to her office, a splendid piece of pride within the station. Usually, he'd make himself at home with the grandeur that befit his attitude, his position as a hired mind and not, strictly speaking, one of Chief Vick's underlings. Today, he didn't have the posing and posturing in him. He slumped into the first seat his butt came to, and again was reminded of the way royal bottoms always managed to hit a procured chair. Vick shut the door, and graceful as a swan landed in the seat behind her desk. Papers abounded. She scooted them aside, Shawn knowing that she was doing this to have an activity that didn't include staring at him until he spilled his guts, like Chunk did to the Fratellis in _The Goonies_. Shawn wondered, brought to tears by the thought of Vicks sending his hand into the finest Vitamix then on the market, what confession he was likely to make first: somehow, all of them involved underwear. He cleared his throat and slumped in the seat.

"I didn't do anything. I walked in and he was like that. I swear."

Good ice-breaker, he thought. Now all he needed was sweet grape syrup to pour over the snow-cone slush he'd just made. Vick winced at him, picked up a pen, a standard Bic with grip stripes at the end, and twirled it, tapped it, and set her mouth into a crunch of unsaid words.

She leaped ahead in the game. She usually did. "I want you to find out who he is."

Shawn twitched. "Sorry, could you say that again? My head's been a little fuzzy lately."

Maybe one of his famous sinus infections were coming on. He'd been getting them a lot the last nine months. "I said, Mr. Spencer, that I want you to find out who he is. We've run prints, nothing. He had no identification on him. And we—" She shifted her head, already catching that look in Shawn's eye. Maybe she didn't know much about his personal life, but she could read Shawn if she tried. "What? You already know who he is?"

"No," he said slowly, blinking, landing his hands down the chair's arms. "It's not that. I don't know who he is. But everyone has something about them that gives away where they've been." He sent her a challenge before he spoke it. "What if I can't do it?"

Vick huffed an incredulous laugh. But she wasn't above buoying him up, when necessary. It seemed it was necessary. "You've rarely if ever disappointed me, or any of us from the SBPD. I know your methods are different than ours, but you get results. Maybe they're not the results we're always looking for, or even the ones we're suspecting, but they're still results. You can handle this, can't you?"

Shawn thought he could handle it. "I have a caveat," he proclaimed.

Vick raised her eyes to his. That wasn't like him. What was wrong with him, anyway? "You can bring Guster in on it, too, of course."

That wasn't it. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew that wasn't what he was asking. His stillness let her make a second stab at it.

"You want me to keep Lassiter away from you?"

"No." He paused, having said that too quickly. He recovered from the innate blunder. "I can take care of Lassie myself."

"Oh, I'm sure you can."

Awkward. His cheeks were heating up again and it was awkward. Lassie knew way too much about him now. "But I haven't been myself lately."

"Got the yips?"

"No." He winced into the nothingness beneath Vick's desk. He wondered what would happen if he told her. "Worse." He paused, the corner of his mouth lifting and the sad notes of irony lingering in his look. "A broken heart."

Vick was engulfed by surprise. He didn't look like a fractured Romeo. He look liked Shawn, just Shawn drowned in the stiffness of fatigue and sadness.

"Shattered," he added. His eyes burned. His insides turned to rotten flesh. "More like shattered." He perked up enough to flash a shallow smile. "So, I might not be at my best. Is that fair? I just wanted you to be nicely, tidily warned."

She wanted to ask why, what'd happened. Rooting through the near past, Karen found nothing that suited this present predicament. He'd been fine when O'Hara and Gus announced their engagement, doing so with one of the greatest pranks the couple had yet pulled off. Shawn, at the receiving end of the hoax, had been as amused by the whole thing as the rest of them. And just as happy for his friends to show their love for one another. So. It wasn't the loss of Juliet to his best friend that'd fragmented Shawn. It was something else.

"Everything okay at home?"

She didn't know what else to ask. Did he even have a home?

"With your dad, I mean. Is your mom all right?"

"Yeah, no, everyone's fine. It's just me."

Whatever it was, Vick wasn't going to find out talking to him then in her office, a dead body being taken care of by the arriving professionals. "If you need to talk about anything—"

"Thanks," he said, preempting the rest of the statement.

She wasn't going to let him off so easily. "I was going to suggest that you talk to Carlton."

"Oh," he snickered, getting up from the seat, waving a hand through his hair, "yeah, well, he's been—"

A knock on the door heralded the arrival of Lassiter with Henry Spencer. Henry was quick to tackle Shawn with affectionate hands, asking if he was all right and what was going on. Shawn wanted to answer: Vick beat him to it.

"Your son found a dead body in our holding cells, Henry."

"Damn," Henry muttered, again holding Shawn, pinching his boy's earlobes the way he used to do when Shawn was still in diapers. It was hardly Shawn's first dead body, of course, discovered, run into, seen, witnessed, inspected—or otherwise. Still. Henry knew his kid pretty well, most days, most moments, and there hung about Shawn the air of one stuck beneath misfortune. It had nothing to do with the dead body in holding. He swerved to Vick. "Who was it?"

"Don't know," Lassiter said, crossing his arms, tilting against the back of a heavy chair. "He refused to say when he was brought in."

"If he knew," Shawn said. He had no reason to speak such a thing.

Lassiter caught on. "He knew."

The two of them transferred thoughts upon an invisible stream. Shawn buckled, sure that Lassie was right, this time. There were things about a person even Lassiter could sense. The body knew his name, and, for some reason, he wasn't going to tell.

"Why keep it a secret?" Henry threw the question to no one. He heard Vick give her response, looked at Shawn to see him shrug. He hadn't had time to think about it yet. If he did, though, Henry didn't doubt that Shawn would give it all he got. But what he had was not what he usually had. Henry clamped a hand on Shawn's shoulder, squeezed it. "From my experience, I can say that people keep a secret like that because they're hiding something. Either he's rich, and didn't want anyone to know who he was. Or he's running from his past."

Vick let him think these were solid reasons. She waited, flicking a gaze at Lassiter, barreling it back to Henry. She smiled brightly, holding a touch of the irony that she so appreciated. "I've put your son in charge of finding out who he is."

"Oh," Henry said.

"You did?" Lassiter had only one follow-up to this. "You'd think he'd know already, being a psychic."

Shawn and Lassiter shared a deep, dead-pan look that neither appreciated nor obliterated the attempted ridicule. It was too late for Lassie to take back his sensitive gestures from earlier, and Shawn could see through the veneer to the weaknesses tumbling within. Lassie had carried the same hurt, even to a greater degree. Shawn knew this. He turned away, scared, for a second, to see what the two of them had in common.

Kinsey would've cackled at them.


	5. Well Begun is Half Done

V. Well Begun is Half-Done

_July, 2010_

Just after midnight, the room was cast in a faint silver-blue glow. It wasn't the stars or the moon, only Adrian's laptop screen. From where he was in bed, Shawn could see Adrian's face, the smoothness of his cheeks, the angles of his nose, and the screen caught in a star-like highlight in his intense eyes. Stirring the sheets, where they'd lain a little while ago, Shawn pawed for his phone. Message notifications—and a reminder that the stargazing tonight was good—and he could feel the second Adrian looked at him. It ignited his skin in a cold but firelike blaze. It felt like the first fierce passion of sex.

"Emails," Adrian proclaimed, going back to the screen and trying to pluck statements from thin air. "I forgot. I had to write some emails. Sorry if I woke you up."

Adrian wasn't so sure he had. Shawn's sleep patterns were indecipherable. Luck hadn't been on Adrian's side in discovering those patterns. Did they exist? He'd questioned, often enough over the last two weeks, if Shawn slept at all. Too cat-like, Shawn dozed. He crept an eyelid open from time to time, to make sure the world was still going around and around. He'd curl up. He'd doze again.

"You didn't," said Shawn. Piled pillows cushioned his back against the hard wooden headboard in Adrian's bedroom. It looked like an Ikea showroom, without the smell of Swedish meatballs. It was always clean and comfortable, but never posh and never lush. Simplicity, but what they did there was far from simple. Shawn sighed, set his head back. He heard Adrian click a few more keys, heard a mouse button click and the whoosh sound of an email sent into the internet. He heard the laptop lid go down, heard the softness of its slide across the table by the chair. He felt the mattress sink beneath the weight of Adrian's knee, and again with his other knee. A hand skimmed the inside of his shin, upward to his thigh. Fingertips caressed him, his belly, and grasped him as Adrian pulled himself in for a long kiss. Shawn was on the verge of wondering if they were going to do that forever—literally, figuratively—but Adrian sat on his thighs and squeezed him, molded him like he was of clay, from the shoulders down his arms, and up again.

"Emails?" Shawn echoed, as if finally catching on to Adrian doing business Saturday, just after midnight. "Now?"

Adrian snickered. Shawn wasn't jealous, nothing to be jealousy of, but curious. Feline qualities again: a saucer of milk, a contented purr, a curiosity that flicked his tail and pricked up his ears. "I remembered—I mean, I remembered that I forgot about this house going into foreclosure. Friends of my sister's own it. I said I'd handle it for them. Almost forgot." He pawed gently at the side of Shawn's face. Kitten—fierce lion—rambunctious. Not to be crossed, not to be messed with. Easily distracted. "I forget what I've been doing the last two weeks."

Shawn's hands had a mind of their own. Since they'd left that cousin's graduation party and had gone to Adrian's place. It was ridiculous, their naturalness. They'd fallen into each other. It took a few months to figure out how and why. "Why?" Shawn teased. He knew the answer. The last two weeks had gone by in fractures of reality, the rest of it too great to name, too private to distrust. They were never in a rush to understand what had happened when they'd met at Vons—the one on East Harbor Boulevard. "Why have you been more forgetful the last two weeks? Work stress? Foreclosures? Upcoming Supreme Court rulings? Ah, I know, you met someone."

Adrian left their kiss with Shawn's bottom lip between his teeth. Funny, someone so vanilla in bed could live a life like Shawn Spencer had. It'd taken Shawn a while to find the lost spice. And they did things that Adrian didn't know he could do. And Shawn thought of things that he couldn't. "You," he said, settling in closer to Shawn. "You. It's always your fault."

"I'm good at that."

"And introducing me to all the different ways a person can use pineapple in cooking."

"I'm thinking of writing a cookbook just about pineapple."

"You should. You know what else you should do?" Adrian was good at this bed-banter thing. Shawn was usually the one doing all the talking when it came to sex. But he was adaptable. It was part of his charm. Later—he didn't know it then—his adaptability would be used against him by the very man then inching his hand to Shawn's special spots. "You should come with me tomorrow."

"It is tomorrow." Shawn transferred words around, meanings were lost, puns were punctuated.

That made Adrian wriggle. It was possible to get closer to Shawn, very close. It was just stupid to wait. "No, to see this foreclosure. It sounds like a nice place."

"You want me to go look at a house with you?"

They'd been with each other intensely, that was true. But it wasn't long. Shawn had already heard from Adrian that buying a house was in his future. He had the money for a downpayment—Shawn believed it—and Shawn had nothing to offer but everything he had. It felt like so little. Like cupfuls of air.

"Your input would be valuable," Adrian assured him, smiling, and not covering it up. He couldn't cover it up. That'd be impossible. "It only has two bedrooms. I think they knocked down a wall, got rid of a bedroom to make the living room bigger. Or something. I don't remember." Adrian squirmed again, squeezed Shawn's thighs between his knees. The sheet disappeared from Shawn's chest, and Adrian budged it down further to the prize waiting beneath. "It's in your neck of the woods. Santa Barbara. I can't remember where. Want to come?"

"Yes," Shawn said, without even trying to pretend there was no pun. He hiked his hips up for a second. Adrian chuckled. "Yes. I do—I really, really do."

"It might be another month before we could move in, if we like the place. So I figure, that's enough time to know."

What was there to know? They could barely get out of bed when they were ensconced at Adrian's. They had chemistry that would be the envy of scientists everywhere. They got along—got along well enough to make it all seem possible, this true love business. "I don't know," Shawn whispered with an edge in his voice, "what if my next pineapple recipe doesn't impress you?"

Adrian leaned in and kissed him hard—then tilted back, kissed him softly. All of it was fine—the best—the best Shawn had ever had. And like every other cliché of an independent man, it terrified him.

"You can cook all the pineapple you want in our kitchen," Adrian said. He sounded encouraging. One set of fingers moved down Shawn's bare arm, while his lips took small tastes from Shawn's neck. "We can do anything we want in our kitchen."

It'd taken them two weeks and a lot of time in that bedroom, in that apartment, for them to reach the point. They should be living together. And forget all this nonsense of back and forth, this dallying, these delays of the inevitable. To delay would only make a mockery of what happened when they were together. Why delay the future? Shawn's hands kneaded the thighs that closed him in. He could picture it, all of this going on into perpetuity. Their bedroom, their Ikea showroom, and Adrian's clothes on the floor, Shawn's there, too, messed together as the two of them came back from a long day at work and fell into each other's arms. Lovemaking and the simplicity of what they had—uncomplicated, undiluted—unique and powerful and something. Something that Shawn hadn't clasped or glimpsed in years. A house, a home.

And Adrian, their life together, waiting beyond the front door.

-x-

Finding the body at the precinct caused an uproar. The entire staff knew about it hours later. By then, three o' clock, Shawn had guessed that other cop shops in nearby towns had heard about it, too. More officers were on the phone, more detectives and lieutenants fielded phone calls than ever before. Shawn watched them when he could through the windows of Vick's office. When his mind wasn't sinking to the past. Adrian—his arms, his delicious flesh, and the hell and the fire they'd created. And now Shawn was just left with the hell.

He palmed his forehead, pulled back his hair. It was getting long again, and again he was going against the common trends. Men weren't wearing their hair longer that year. He'd just forgotten to get a haircut, and looked like he was floating unknown through 2004 and not 2011. Was he floating? No longer sure, Shawn looked at his shoes against the tile. Grounded.

He wasn't needed there. He could go home. Where was that, anyway? Nobody knew. It'd become too difficult to talk about it because he had talked about it too much to Gus. Adrian this—Adrian that—and Gus was getting married in August and really couldn't care less. But Shawn had moved out of Mee Mee's ages ago and beneath the roof of Adrian's heart. There, he found brief safety. And now his stuff was somewhere in Ventura, in a storage place not far from the Vons on East Harbor Boulevard. His life wrapped in pale paper and hugged by cardboard. He had nothing—and nobody knew.

When Vick returned, Shawn recalled, in brilliant Stereophonic sound, what she'd said. Talk to Carlton, she was going to suggest before his assumptions cut her off, his embarrassed thanks nicked the tribute short. Talk to Carlton. Shawn had talked to him, learned more than he had in years, and felt decorticated. His flesh wasn't part of his bones. Shawn Spencer was now only a body.

Like the one in the basement.

"Shawn," Vick started, tried to keep going but just stopped at the final drop of the "N" hanging on the end of her tongue. Was that Shawn? Quiet, sullen—and she remembered what he'd said. Shattered, actually. Wasn't that an impossible thing? He always pulled through in situations that tried his emotions. He never forgot. That didn't mean the sensations he didn't want to deal with lingered. How long had he been like this? But she'd hardly seen him the last few months, and definitely not much the last eight months. Beginning to wonder if he was fading from the SBPD altogether, Vick had tried not to worry. Days had been slow. Crimes had been solvable by her own talented team of dedicated, sanctioned officers. Shawn had always been what Shawn was. A rogue operator. She couldn't read him like text. She could read him like ogham, like words spilled into an aquarelle.

"You can probably go home. I think we're all done asking questions from you. Unless," she dribbled into her chair, and he stayed stationary by the east windows, "unless you need something from me? Damn, are you really that good, that you found out who he is already?"

"No," Shawn quickly spat out. He didn't want Vick thinking him better than he was. "No," now a self-deprecating snicker, "it's not that. I haven't even gotten started yet. There really were a ridiculous amount of questions, weren't there? And the mayor—"

The mayor had called. Twice. Vick had been displeased. Not for the disclosure of the event to Mayor Dario Cordero. That was expected. She just wished she'd told him first. A good chief would've done that. "We've sent the body to autopsy. We'll have some results in a day or two, depending on how quickly Dr. Strode and his crew feel like working. Hard to find good help these days."

"Woody's one of the best at what he does," countered Shawn. He understood that she'd been playing up Woody's unconventional maneuverings. He was as unique as Shawn Spencer—no, more so. Shawn was living with his regrets. Woody had led a simple life. No regrets, very few complications. What he had that he disfavored were risible, handled with care. And he always looked at Shawn as if expecting him to do a great and wonderful thing. All Shawn felt in his pores were the stings of his regrets. His decisions. His poor choice of words. Adrian's silence the unwanted reaction, the horrible outcome of one, one, one unfathomable mistake. The horror of honesty. "He'll have it done by this time tomorrow."

"You'll know if he does. But you can go."

Go. Go where? Where to now? Because no one had ever just dropped by while he'd lived at Mee Mee's—no one ever did, no one ever came, and he rarely got first-class mail—Shawn's bones went soft at the thought of his nothingness. He didn't have Mee Mee's anymore. Every time he didn't tell this to someone, or correct their assumption, the lie burned his tongue and singed his soul. It was the lying that'd gotten him in trouble, and lying that had saved his hide. But he couldn't do it again. He was about to say something to Vick. He didn't know what. What to say? He could improvise. He'd spent a lot of time with an improvisational troupe and he could improv his way out of anything. Nearly away from death. Not heartache. It was too profound, too glaringly obvious, too there. But he could move away from this. "Chief—"

"Ah, good, Spencer," Lassiter entered the office without knocking. Shawn realized the door had never been closed. Lassie's stride was long, cool, and his tie bounced. The splotches of color looked like tiny, quivering universes. "Are you done here? Ready to go?"

Go. Go where? Where to now? Because Shawn couldn't read him. Lassie was blank as a bone. He glanced instead at the tie. A closet full of ties back home, even some whimsical ones that She Who Did Not Remain must've given him, with little squirrels and one with pale llamas wearing top hats against a navy background. Shawn's favorite of Lassiter's ties. The llamas. He blinked, unthawing. "Yeah—yeah, I'm good to go here, I think. Yeah, Chief? We're all square?"

"As houses, Mr. Spencer." Chief Vick gave him a solid, warm grin. She fingered a bright pink mug with irises on it. "Although, technically, I guess that would be cubes. But, either way, yeah, go home." It was weird saying that to him—them. A unit, a couple. She thought about the succulent on Lassiter's desk and couldn't help but wonder if Shawn's little green thumbs were bringing presents to her most talented detective. Nothing existed between them, yes? Nothing. Stale air. The faint hint of antagonism. Discord. Dejection. Rejection—hatred, cruel and unbendable. Some things never broke. They could only bend. A smile tugged at her mouth from the unforeseen. "Goodnight, you two."

"I can come back, Chief, and—"

"Not necessary, Detective," Karen chided. "Hurry on home. It'll all be here in the morning."

Carlton wanted to dig into the pockets of his jacket for the best response. Was he being punished, was this a punishment for something? No, that couldn't be. He did his work, the due diligence, the paper filing—everything. She could have nothing to punish. She was being nice. She was cutting him a favor. For Shawn's sake. He had a feeling that was why. She knew about Shawn, maybe knew as much as he did. No—not that much—but there were guesses, assumptions. Born from the way Shawn looked, skin slack upon his slack frame, and his heart so cracked it nearly showed as a blackness oozing from his chest. Because he understood, Lassiter gripped Shawn's elbow for a second. Long enough, though, to lead him to the door. His pale and wretched friend of sorts, recked and tired and symbolically finding dead bodies. "Come on, Shawn. You can check the succulents at home."

Shawn shuffled after Carlton. He stopped under the lintel. Paused to look at the chief. Instead of saying one thing or another, he stuck two fingers to his brow and pushed them away. She accepted the salute with a slant of her mouth and a hint of humor in her eyes. It was enough.

Karen watched them go. She eased up from the chair just to watch them go to the front of the building, watched until they disappeared down the stairs. Carlton just a few steps ahead, Shawn just lingering behind. His jeans had fallen over his hips far enough that the tail end of the hem dragged on the floor below the soles of his shoes. His shirt looked large. He looked like a little kid, lost and unable to be found. Karen sighed, turned away. In doing so, she caught across the room the guarded eye of O'Hara. Had she seen them, too? A commiseration between them ignited. She had seen them. As Vick looked away, then looked back again, O'Hara was texting on her phone. To Gus, Vick guessed. To tell him what she'd seen. If she could put it into words at all, Vick was glad one of them could. She couldn't. It went beyond comprehension.

She texted her husband. "Day's been a little weird." To her surprise, he texted right back. He didn't mention the body in the basement, which meant it hadn't broke to the local news affiliates yet. That was a boon. Mayor Cordero would be pleased, and knots in Vick's stomach relaxed.

"That sucks," she read on her phone. "Come home early then."

"You know," she wrote back, "I think I might."

Comforts of home sounded nice. She hoped that's all Shawn needed, too. If anything about Carlton Lassiter could be homey. If anything about him could be comfortable, well, then, Shawn Spencer could find it.

If Shawn were shattered, then, actually, all he needed was a bit of glue.


	6. Kindly Stop Spinning About Me

**VI. Kindly Stop Spinning About Me**

Shawn liked the couch. It was dark blue, sort of gray-blue. A lot of the house was gray, somber as rain clouds on a California winter's day. The walls were varying shades of gray, trimmed in white, and nothing elaborate there. The trim was a plain replacement of more ornate stuff Shawn had found in the attic, some in the shed. The house might've been beautiful once, before stripped of its personality. Now it lay wasted in gray and "open concept" and inhabited by one strong man who left his gun sitting on the kitchen counter. There was no dining room table yet, or Lassie would've left his gun there, and Shawn would've left his shoes and coat there, too.

He heard Lassie in the back of the house. The bedroom floor squeaked in a spot in front of the closet. Lassie stepped on it in rhythm. Shawn didn't know why, but the squeaky-squeak sent his heart squeaking on its own. It ached for something he didn't know anymore. It was just the loss, he told himself. He'd lost what he'd known. The familiar. A soft squeak in the floor.

He let his torso tip to the left. The cushions yielded to his presence. Why couldn't life do that? Yield to his presence. If he'd been born a necromancer or a unicorn, then it would've. He would've been the only unicorn, the only necromancer. He could've changed his life and done something more.

He could've learned to keep his mouth shut. To never, ever let the truth come out when it wasn't wanted.

Honesty was overrated, wasn't it?

Shawn was surprised by the coziness of the couch. It was soft to the touch. He had thought, once, when he was still in the throes of excitement over the house, of taking all his clothes off and sitting on the couch naked. Well, no, not sitting—lying on the couch naked. A perfect state of humble, nude repose. To get a laugh over Lassie, who'd never know that Shawn Spencer had been there on his sofa, naked, and enjoying it. He hadn't done that. It was too disrespectful. Shawn wasn't sure to what object the respect was funneled: the couch, or Lassie. Odds were it was the couch.

His eyes closed against his will. He could sleep like this. He had, once. Without meaning to, he'd been dusting and the next thing he knew it was after three in the afternoon, and he needed to go in case Lassie could smell the scent of his clean clothes. The dryer had a way of perfuming the cottage. Shawn hadn't wanted Lassie to know just yet. It would ruin everything if he knew too soon. If he found out. Shawn knew where all the squeaks in the floorboards were, and he could override them, every one, even after Lassie had gone to sleep. A gun on the table next to him. It'd terrified Shawn that first night, sneaking in to sleep in the guest room. He knew where the gun was. How close he could come to forcing Carlton to do it, shoot him in the middle of the night. It could happen. Shawn was an intruder. Lassie would be within his right to shoot Shawn the intruder.

Last night, though, last night—he'd cried so much and so hard and so often that he couldn't risk it. He'd spent the night at his dad's, instead. While there, the memories of something older than his broken heart and lost relationship staved off tears. He hadn't slept well, but it wasn't from what it was usually from.

And now, there he was, sitting—half lying—on the dark blue, somewhat gray couch. And he'd been invited in, like a vampire, by the homeowner.

The homeowner returned to the living room, and a profound thud in his chest hit him as he saw Shawn on the couch. It was weird. Shawn looked so—so Shawn-like. And also so un-Shawn-like. Curious about Shawn's vulnerability, Carlton crept closer. As he went, he dropped his jogging hoodie upon the beige chair, and exchanged it for a blanket peeled from the top. He couldn't believe he was doing this, willing to cover Shawn up like a child. If he were asleep, Carlton would. If he wasn't asleep, well, that would be a moment of embarrassment, awkwardness—but didn't they know too much about each other now to create awkwardness? They could stir it up, yes. They could inspire what was already in existence. But engender more? Create more? Not possible.

Carlton held his breath as he assessed Shawn. Good looking, yes, if a little undone at the edges. But he could clean up nicely—and somehow Carlton started imagining Shawn there during the day, when he wasn't there to provide protection for his house—and Shawn trying on his suits, thumbing his ties, and checking himself out in the mirror to see how good he looked in gray pinstripe and soft peach tie. Carlton tried not to laugh at his own thought. His imagination was amusing to him. Shawn—in a suit. Shawn—in that house. Part of that had transformed into reality. Shawn had his palm up, close to his face, almost like a kid about to suck his thumb. Carlton felt it again, a ringing in his head, a tug at his soul. And She Who Did Not Remain citing all the reasons they couldn't and that they mustn't bring a child into the world.

The truth was.

The truth was.

She didn't want to do that with him._ I don't want to waste it on you. _She'd meant to say: You're not dad material.

"I can hear you," Shawn whispered to the shadow and the presence, the Degree antiperspirant smell of Lassiter. "And smell you. And generally feel you. I'm not sleeping." The hand moved from relaxed to showing him a raised forefinger, emphasis on the point. "I thought about it. Just didn't happen."

"Well, here," Carlton dropped the blanket, also gray, on Shawn's lap as Shawn tilted himself upright. "I brought this for you."

It was seventy degrees that day. Contrary to popular belief, should there be a popular belief on the subject, Carlton was not strictly an Air Condition Only guy. The windows were open. Every single screen and every single lock attached to the house's elaborate security system, and when Shawn knew about it, he'd been ever-so relieved that he'd retrieved a key. It would not do to break into Lassiter's place. Not do at all. It smelled like the tang of drying grass beneath a May sun, and that faint, faint allure of an unknown aroma that had probably drawn Shawn back to Santa Barbara more than poverty or boredom. He loved that smell. He sat outside in the mornings, when he lived with Adrian, just to smell that smell. And Adrian would come out and—

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Thanks," he said to Carlton. He cuddled the gray chenille close to him.

"Headache?"

This was a common reaction to Shawn's tightly shut eyes, the way he touched the side of his face.

"I have aspirin," Carlton shared. "Aspirin. Acetaminophen. Ibuprofen. I have it all. Just say the word and I'll find your selected analgesic, Spencer."

"It's all in the medicine cabinet over the sink in the bathroom." Shawn looked at him squarely. Weirdly. And weird. That they should know so much about one place. And for different reasons, loved it in their way. "Not a secret, Lass."

"Suppose not," Carlton smirked.

"Why are you dressed like you're going for a jog?"

"Because I'm going for a jog. I wasn't going to ask if you wanted to come along."

The truth was.

The truth was.

Shawn didn't look like he'd survive a jog. At all. Carlton kind of wished Shawn would go back to the way he was, prone on the sofa, asleep like a child, and not minding if he was seen as vulnerable.

"I could go for a jog," Shawn protested, meekly. "I could."

"I'd rather you didn't." It was teasing. It was the old way Carlton said things to Shawn Spencer to irk and remove and displace the closeness between them.

"I can—" Shawn started getting up: Carlton pushed him back down.

"Lass, I can—" Shawn started getting up: Carlton pushed him back down.

"Stay," Carlton said.

"That's your command, isn't it, Pooch?"

Shawn liked the way Carlton's mouth tightened into a pale, pale pink line at the nickname of his nickname. An explosion might arrive, just not yet. Not now. It was funny, but Shawn detected more a hint of amusement in the back of Carlton's austere gaze than any sort of anger—fury, wrath, vexation, none of that. The flavor was pleasure. A sour pleasure, but pleasure nonetheless.

Shawn pushed away thoughts of Adrian and pleasure and—

"I could go for a jog."

"No," Carlton said. He needed to explain. Shawn was going to insist and insist and insist, and he was going to get tired. Quickly. "Look, I know how you feel. I know the world is spinning on her axis quicker than you can keep up right now. I know what it's like to think that you've eaten, only to realize that was probably two or three days ago. I know what it's like to feel that you could fall asleep standing on your feet, and damn it, you wish you would because sleeping is the only immediate and known cure for the pain you're feeling. You look like death on a stick, Shawn. Death on a stick. And if you think for one second that I'm going to enable you and your sore, broken, bleeding heart, you got another thing coming. I'm not going to look after you. I'm not going to see you through this. You can do that. And you can do this. I know you can. What I am going to do is watch you like a hawk. Because these are your worst days. And these hours, the ones you're experiencing now, are your worst hours. They seem like centuries, don't they? Strangling you with every passing minute. And freedom seems so far away. Now. Listen, Spencer. You need to stay here while I go for a nice little jog around the neighborhood. Turn on the television. Watch mindless programming. Rot your brain. That's what you need right now. A rotting brain. Shut it down. Quiet it before it drives you insane—and it will try—it will try really hard to drive you insane. If you go out for a jog with me, you're going to collapse and drown—you got me? Your mind is saying yes. Your body will say no. Don't push yourself. And don't push me. You got that? You do what you need to do to heal. But don't think for one second that I'm going to let you push yourself too far." He inhaled slowly through his nose, his lips drawn again into the line of pale, pale pink that Shawn so admired. He leaned away as he exhaled. He'd said too much. It hurt him. If none of it got through to Shawn, Carlton would only hurt more. "Okay?"

Shawn nodded his agreement before speaking it. He wasn't sure what'd just happened. Lassie had just monologued him. Lectured him. And it was kind of a sexy thing. Eerily informative and just sexy enough to be a little bit disturbing. Addle-brained, Shawn nodded more enthusiastically. "Yeah, okay. I got it."

"And one more thing."

"What?"

"Don't call me Pooch. Ever. Again."

Carlton was at the front door, waiting to get on with his jog. Shawn kicked off his shoes as Lassie was about to use his to pound the pavement of that tucked-away neighborhood. Shawn picked up the remote, turned the television on.

"I will," Shawn said, "when you actually ask me to."

All he heard was a grunt before the door shut.

Lassiter went through his stretches on the front lawn. He pushed himself too far, like he had told Shawn not to do just seconds ago. And he was doing it out of frustration, anger, and fear. He replayed some of what he'd said to Shawn, what he could remember. It bothered him. This whole thing was getting to him. He didn't want Shawn to be heartbroken because of some lawyer who was too stupid to see the obvious, or too stupid to hold on to impossible things—the wholeness and entirety of Shawn Spencer's love being the impossible thing, in this atypical scenario. Carlton wondered at a pivotal, unknown point in the past when Shawn's heart became an object of concern. The look on Shawn's face, Carlton guessed, when he'd walked up to his desk at the station, at a time that felt like centuries ago. And that moment that Carlton knew what sort of heartbreak Shawn had been through. The worst kind. The kind no one wants to talk about. The scary kind. The worst.

Carlton knew there was more to Shawn and Adrian's saga. Something bold and unknown, something even Gus didn't know. What was it?

Shawn was almost asleep with cartoons on when Carlton opened the door. Seconds had passed, right? Shawn looked around the living room, up to Carlton dangling in the doorway, not edging so far from the open door to pass the credenza. A startled expression covered his usual scowl.

"What?" pressed Shawn. He muted the volume, and cartoon sound effects disappeared into the chirping of sparrows through the open door. A wind came in, feathered Lassie's oversized t-shirt, also gray, and touched Shawn on the cheek before it vanished.

Carlton didn't know if he could ask. It wasn't his business. This was a voluntary thing, these intimacies with Shawn, this accidental inclusion into Shawn's personal life. He didn't ask for it. He couldn't. Shawn was so, so far away from everything that Carlton would've listed in the qualities of a friend. But that wasn't the point. Pain was the point. It punctuated Shawn's life right then. An interrobang.

"You," Carlton began, working his way from this pronoun to other joining words, "and Adrian—you and Adrian—"

"Me and Adrian," Shawn repeated, trying to find where Lassie was going with this. "You already know that we were—were together—together, together."

"Yeah, I get that. But you—you—"

"Out with it, Lass. What?" He was more worried than embarrassed. Lassie had gone pale. Paler than ever was the thin line of his lips. Shawn found himself staring at it, that line. He bounced his gaze back to the safest haven of Lassie's eyes. "What?"

"You were together for such a short time and I think you were—" How was he going to phrase this? Carefully and slowly and meticulously were certainly not working. He could try sloppily and quickly. "Were you married? Engaged? Living together? It's something, isn't it? It's something bigger than what you're telling me."

Shawn swallowed. And then came the tears. He deracinated himself from the sofa in order to prowl the living room. Lassiter's detective skills were exemplary. They were downright genius, in fact. "What makes you think that? Any of it. I'm not saying it's true. But what—what made you think so?"

Carlton settled against the coffee table (black, not gray), and waited with his hands cupped between his bare, knobby knees. He was shaking a little. Why was he shaking a little? This wasn't his life. This had no bearing on whether he slept well that night, woke up the next morning, went about his settled, petrous routine. Tomorrow would be Thursday, and it'd be just another day, but to Shawn—to Shawn— "Because that's what happened when Victoria pulled the rug out from under me. And I should've seen it coming. Should've known," his voice was low with self-inflicted rage, tilted with self-hate. "I didn't. I didn't know. Didn't see it coming. Even psychics, like you, well, they wouldn't always see it coming. Which is it, though? Were you married? Did you elope? It's not unheard of. I know this guy from the gym and he and his boyfriend eloped, thought it'd be easiest but he'd underestimated the mania of his in-laws— Not that you have to tell me anything. It's hardly my business. It's just—just that I know you. You would do it. You'd elope. Because you get so wrapped up in everything, don't you, Spencer? You are the type that does rather than thinks. You are the type that doesn't ask but just begs for forgiveness later. You are that type. The type most of us other types wish we could be. Because you would only ever love someone so hard that you would give up your life for it." He paused, palms over his knobby knees. "Like me. There wasn't anything in the world I wouldn't have done for her. And it was never enough, because she asked me for things that were outside myself, beyond me. Things I couldn't do because they weren't me. You are, though. You're like that."

Shawn couldn't reply to any of this. He dissected it. Bit by bit, even as a whole, it couldn't be what he wanted to hear in his head right then. He ran a hand across his hair. Haircut missed, again. Lost in the dreariness of Saturday, his present a reminder of his losses and forgetfulness. Carlton on the coffee table, sitting somewhere that wasn't a seat, not a real one, wasn't like Carlton at all. Not really. This was a mess, the biggest one he'd ever created for himself. And there was no way out.

Shawn felt the sickness rise from the area of his belt buckle, rise and rise up his esophagus.

Carlton shut his eyes when he heard Shawn throw up in the bathroom. When he heard the toilet flush, figuring it was safe to do so, Carlton went in, armed with a fresh washcloth. He ran it under cold water from the faucet. He handed it to Shawn, who'd moved from the sorry spot in front of the toilet to sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Carlton sat with him. He rubbed Shawn's back as Shawn wiped his red, splotchy face. Carlton knew one thing: he was never going to get an answer to that question. He had satisfied it, in a way: he knew there was more than what Shawn had said. There always was.

"Come on," Carlton coaxed Shawn out of the bathroom, but still carried the damp, cool washcloth, "I think there's three Man with No Name movies waiting for us tonight."

"What about your jog?"

"We can order takeout."

Shawn knew when he was being dismissed and when he was being coddled. "You don't have to do all that for me. Or give up your schedule or routine just because I threw up." He threw up. In Lassie's toilet. If he ever saw Adrian again—he'd—he'd probably just throw up again. He wasn't feeling pugilistic enough to even dream of the sound right hook he could land on Adrian's perfectly five-o-clock shadowed jaw. Violence, he dutifully and lawfully reminded himself, healed nothing. Then again, he wasn't a cop. Where did honesty and lawfulness get him?

Much like Shawn would never answer The Question, Carlton was not going to respond to Shawn's little jibes about routine and whatever. Carlton moved Shawn back to the sofa. "Take off your shoes, stay a while."

Carlton grabbed his phone from the coffee table. One of these days, he thought, I'm going to get a real table and it's going to be in this dining room, and I'm going to have friends over, and Shawn will be here, and we'll— He found a text message waiting on his phone. From Henry Spencer.

Henry had left the station when Shawn had told him to, just after Vick's first telephone call from the mayor. Hours had gone by since Shawn had found the body, and it'd been clear that Henry could do nothing more than pillar and bulwark Shawn for what Shawn had already bulwarked himself for. Henry and Lassiter had exchanged a few words. Nothing slick and profound and subtle. Just words.

He thumbed a text back to Henry. "He's okay. He's here. We're just hanging out."

Standing in the garage, damp from the knees down, from the elbows down, from washing the truck, Henry took out his blurting phone. He read Lassiter's text with confusion more than compunction.

"Hanging out, with Lassiter?" Henry said out loud to himself, to the dust bunnies, to the sparrows in the bougainvillea. "What the hell?" He wondered: Should I text that to Maddie? Would she think this is just part of Shawn's healing process? His roller coaster?

With Lassiter, though?

At least Henry knew one thing. The name, first and last, of one of Shawn's friends. Carlton. Lassiter.

When Carlton was putting in a takeaway order for delivery—there was no way he was leaving the house until morning—he heard a blurt on his phone that signaled the arrival of a text message. He'd long ago figured out how to assign certain sounds to certain persons in his contacts. Shawn had a very distinctive text tone. And it was Shawn who'd texted him. He once again repeated that he wanted extra fried rice, Shawn had said it sounded good to him, and an extra handful of fortune cookies, before hanging up and reading what Shawn had sent. They were two rooms away from each other. What could Shawn have to say in a text that he couldn't say in person? The idea was almost comical—tantalizingly comical. Shawn could say anything in a text, really. There was very little that Shawn wouldn't say to anyone's face, either.

Lassiter read the text. It made him growl, then made him snicker.

"Thanks, Pooch." An emoji of a cute little dog face only irritated Lassiter further.

But he thought it was funny. Shawn-like. Insubordination, done with the level of suaveness and almost-cuteness that was like Shawn. Perhaps he was feeling better. Or he'd fallen into a momentary mental and emotional clarity.

It was only irritating because, a) Lassie couldn't think of a way to respond; b) he hated that Shawn had no nickname that could be as annoying as Pooch; c) Pooch seemed, well, seemed a little—a little—a little—uh—well—intimate. Like they had a secret now. A big, shared secret.

"Lassie!" came from the living room. Carlton dimmed the phone screen, free from having to respond. He rubbed his chin with the end of the phone as he went to the living room. He crossed his arms when Shawn, sprawled on the couch, his feet bare of shoes and socks, gave a vague point to the television using the remote. "Funny animated boxy contraption thing no worky-work, no show DVD."

"You're on the wrong input screen, that's all. Want me to do it?"

Shawn snatched the remote from Carlton's sneaky hands. "No!" he said, borrowing the sound from Wadsworth in _Clue_. Carlton kept trying to grab it, and Shawn kept moving it away. "Stop, Lassie, stop! I can do it! Relax!"

Carlton gave in. Shawn saw him vanish down the hallway to the bedroom. A light came on, dispelling the contrast of early evening. It slanted across the floor and cast a glow that crept away gloom. Shawn watched it, mesmerized, as if he'd seen it a thousand times or had lived there a thousand days. He didn't even know why he knew how many years were a thousand days: a thousand days equaled roughly 2.7 years.

Two-point-seven years he'd been there. Feelings were illusions—supple, dangerous. There, in that house, dangers lurked and blinded him.

_Lassiter_, he wanted to shout, he wanted to say, _Lassie, there's something I wanted to tell you. Tell you about this place. This house._

But he couldn't. Not yet. It was still part of the secret. Like living together. Like elopements. Like things in the past. He didn't want to say. Those were all answers buried too far below a surface that still ached.

"I'm starting the movie!" he shouted instead.

"Go ahead! I've seen it a thousand times!"

Over a thousand days? Shawn wanted to ask. But they didn't share thoughts. Just secrets. They seemed to fall into place together, crumbling universes and broken planets, scattered rings and damned things.


	7. Six Impossible Things

**VII. Six Impossible Things**

_September, 2010..._

It often entered Adrian's mind that he knew very little about this person sharing his life. So he'd met Shawn while standing in line at a Vons. A Vons that Adrian knew but didn't visit regularly. A Vons that Shawn had never been to before. A Vons that was a freak occurrence as much as the two of them meeting at all. In fact, the two of them meeting at all merely emphasized the miracle of their freak encounter. "And, you know, I don't normally talk to strangers," Adrian had admitted three months afterwards, when their relationship became less of a friendship and more of the ooey-gooey stuff that happens when eyes meet across a room and emotions whirl with vicious surprise. Shawn's retort had been the anticipated comment, "Maybe you didn't think I was a stranger." Yet, five months in, and Adrian still didn't know a whole lot about Shawn.

He had recently met Shawn's dad, had not yet met his mother but had talked to her on the phone. He'd seen Shawn's childhood home and Shawn's still-childish bedroom. ("How old were you when you left this room behind, anyway?" Adrian had asked, startled to hear Shawn say he was seventeen. Seventeen, but he'd barely spent any time at home between the ages of fourteen and seventeen.) The typical things about Shawn, if there were typical things about him, were known to Adrian: his height ("Luckily, five ten, just barely, in my socks"), hair color ("hot chocolate brown"), roving eye color ("the driver's license says hazel, no one's questioned the validity of that statement"), roving favorite color ("orange—wait, no—blue—wait—hell, I don't know"). But sometimes he would look at Shawn across their pillows in the mid-morning light of some pleasant Saturday and wonder, "Who are you, really?" It was a question that, for a long while, Adrian was content not to ask. He knew that if he looked into Shawn, Shawn would look into him. It was tit-for-tat. It was what Shawn did. And Adrian was ready for a lot with Shawn, but he knew he wasn't ready for that snooping and prying and analyzing.

They'd already had the discussion of their past relationships. It was supposed to be an awkward thing, dissecting the hurts of the past and making sure the person across from you still wanted you, even if you admitted, with honesty and not exaggeration, all your faults. Shawn failed to mind Adrian's previous breakup—Adrian admitted his failures, and had no qualms admitting that the fault wasn't entirely his. Shawn didn't have a lot of relationships that lasted longer than ninety days. Since they'd blown way past ninety days, Adrian listened as Shawn explained how his past was braided with significant friendships, some lovers, most not. It was a little too fascinating, and Adrian cackled, smiled, told Shawn he should write an autobiography.

But what did he really know about Shawn?

On a rainy, dreary day early in September, 2010, and he couldn't find anything else to do but let his mind wander to that question. Every other thought in his head seemed to be Shawn. It happened—it just didn't happen too often—and only one other time in his life.

The answers were on the internet. All he had to do was take the time to read them. A few website titles caught his attention: SBPD Psychic Helps Solve Stale Case—Museum Thankful For Psychic's Help— A couple pictures of Shawn and his friend and coworker Gus were lined up at the top of the search engine results. A coolness and stiffness draped over Adrian, as if he were doing something wrong, sneaking and prying. He was intrigued and befuddled and horrified.

He jumped. The phone on his desk rang. It was a friend in the real estate business. When the phone rang again, ten minutes later, he didn't want to answer it. He wanted to think about Shawn some more. A mystery lay there—waiting, hiding, hibernating. He'd let it go until spring; he'd let it sleep, unmolested, through the drear of winter.

That night, at home, Adrian told Shawn about the phone call, not about the internet search, while digging out a business card from a stiff pile off his desk. Shawn watched the thick blue rubber bands snap off the bundle, Adrian's pretty hands working to slide the cards apart. All the while, pretty hands working and lovely tenor speaking, Shawn's heart was throbbing. Why did Adrian do things to him that no one else had ever been able to do before?

"We met initially because she was such a good friend of my sister's," Adrian was saying, and Shawn admitted, only to himself, that he'd missed a lot of what Adrian had already spoken. Adrian had a sister that was in real estate, too. Adrian was the lawyer in the family, the only lawyer. But one of Adrian's ubiquitous cousins had gone into real estate, buying and selling, and Adrian's younger sibling had followed that path without actually intending to. He didn't really know what the rest of Adrian's family did. The rest of Adrian's family were helter-skelter in their professions: his mother came from money and hadn't worked, ever; Andre, Adrian's father, was in finances, but Shawn knew nothing else but that Andre didn't seem to work, either; the rest of Adrian's cousins pursued their own professions in whatever area interested them. Adrian was the lone lawyer. He'd gone to Stanford: the White and Cardinal flecks of his collegiate history still adorned his apartment.

With a wooden spoon, Shawn budged sautéed broccoli to a bowl with sliced chicken and a warm Italian-flavored cream sauce. Adrian still thumbed his way through cards, still went on about the real estate friend. Adrian fell into tangents, releasing fun information and anecdotes. He could be witty when he chose, throw them out and toss them out when Shawn least expected it. The spontaneity contrasted Adrian's witticisms, so that they looked cleverer than they really were—or perhaps that was all as he'd intended.

The meal was set at the table. It was too rainy and cold to eat on the patio. By the time Shawn got the candles lit, and had dimmed the lights, Adrian appeared with the sought-after business card. Shawn took it. What was he supposed to do now? He looked at Adrian, the soft contours of his face and his keen eyes brightened with humor and hope and candle flame.

"She has a house for us to look at. It's not on the market yet. But just to look at. You want to call her tomorrow?"

"Me?" Shawn asked, confused. That contained a lot of responsibility.

"Yeah, you," Adrian slugged him gently on the arm. "You can do it, little hero. I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow morning, remember? And she wants to show the house to you. I trust your judgment. Now, let's eat! This looks delicious. Is that pineapple chopped up with mini marshmallows? Where's the wine? Did we drink this whole bottle already? I'll get another."

Shawn read the card, falling into his seat. He threw the card, without thinking, into the front pocket of his long-sleeved overshirt. House. They'd been looking at houses but nothing suited yet. And houses were few and far between. Like just the right sweater or underwear: too small, too big—it had to be just right. This was for them, for the rest of their life. They couldn't mishandle the future. But Shawn's thoughts brightened into the present. Food. Adrian. Food. Something with the food. "Yeah, pineapple. Mini marshmallows."

"You know what I like, baby!"

Adrian rubbed Shawn's head and left a kiss there, before they separated. "More wine?"

"No, I'm good." Shawn picked at his food, mind hanging in the elsewhere of tomorrow. "Will she know who I am?"

"Yeah, she'll know who you are."

Shawn nodded, sucking the sweet juice out of a pineapple chunk before swallowing. His mind transferred from the serious to the gauche. "So, wait, did the two of you start talking because you both have hyphenated last names?"

To Shawn's astonishment, his psychicness, fake though it was, had kicked in. Adrian snickered, pulling apart the soft chicken with shiny fork and knife.

"Yeah, we actually did. We met because of Brooke, but we started talking because our last names. It's just that hers is much cooler than mine."

Shawn nodded, hiking up one corner of his mouth. He picked at his food with more enthusiasm, not sure what else he'd do tomorrow with Adrian gone for two days, business in San Francisco, besides call the realtor and go look at a house. "No one could have a cooler name than you," he added, as if it was requisite to pedestal Adrian Harris-Collins—forever and ever, amen.

He could still see the woman's name embossed in shiny black sans-serif font, hyphenated in all its cool and awesome glory: Rebecca Dijon-West.

She could never be as cool as Adrian. She was just a real estate agent. And Adrian—Adrian was just… everything.

**-x-**

Gus's text messaging with Lassiter went back nearly three years, but he barely had to scroll more than two inches for the wholeness of their texting communiques to go from most-recent to least-recent. His eyes crossed spontaneously when he received a text from Lassiter. A bit strange. Considering all that was going on with Shawn, Gus tried not to find it stranger than necessary. "And, again," he'd told Juliet that morning, "here we are, tap dancing and doing jetés all around Shawn and his problems." Juliet had advised him to be sympathetic. He'd explained what'd happened, the parts of it he knew. Still, though, there was a wall around Shawn. Something he wasn't sharing. Something he wasn't telling. And that was new. Upon hearing this supposition from Gus, Juliet suggested that Shawn was probably distancing himself because they—meaning he and Juliet—were busy planning their life together. Shawn wasn't feeling left out. He was feeling isolated.

Following the lead from Lassiter's last text, in a flurry (of a sort) between them, _Coffee should be ready in the kitchen_, Gus went into the dark cube, one window illumined the room from over the sink. On the windowsill, an array of pudgy potted succulents and one phallic cactus. Shawn had once called them "Lassie's little pets." Gus snickered—probably too true. It was easy to find the coffee pot, sitting there on the counter, on, with coffee in it, as coffee pots do. Creamer was pulled from the fridge. The dainty etched glass sugar bowl slumbered nearby. It was such a pretty thing to be in Lassiter's kitchen, last remodeled sometime around 1975. It was such a pretty thing for Lassiter—period. He brought out two mugs, blue ones, from the cupboard just over the coffee pot. Lassiter had things well organized, and he'd done it so quickly, too. Gus had witnessed it. Of course, Lassiter had very few chattels, really, coming from one rented house to one purchased house, from a divorce, from disinterest in owning personal belongings (a belief rampaged by Shawn, who'd advised Gus to eye Lassie's tie collection, and thus he did and thus the former impression withered). Lassiter had straightened the place, from just a few boxes, in a matter of three days.

Gus had stirred his cup of coffee, and brought another, just plain black, with him down the hall. On the left, the second bedroom, with a faintly nautical theme that Juliet was still working on. It didn't matter. Shawn was asleep in a mess of sheets—upside down—head where the feet should be, feet where the head should be. At first bewildered by this topsy-turvy visual, Gus soon realized what he was seeing. If Shawn slept upside down and turned-around in bed, it was a sign that Shawn had a lot on his mind, found sleep a hell rather than a heaven. Gus wasn't sure what kind of mood he'd find Shawn in.

"Hey."

Gus's steps stumbled when the sheets and puffy white-blue comforter billowed out the word. Shawn must've heard him coming, might've even been awake for hours. Who knew? "Brought you some coffee."

"Thanks." The sheets moved, a swirl of color, a swish of sound, and Shawn eventually appeared, his head where his feet just were. He rubbed his face, his too-long hair. "What time is it?"

"About a quarter to eleven. You sleep all right?"

Aside from being awake for a few hours between one and five, yeah, he was splendid. "Fantastic," he grumbled, nearly incoherently. He sipped the brew, winced at it, because it was flat bean-water, harsh and explosive against his taste buds. "Oh my god, Lassie likes this stuff so that it grows hair not only on your chest, but on your balls and feet as well. I can feel my calves getting very hairy right this very second."

"Thank goodness you said calves. Doesn't he put a bunch of stuff in his coffee? Sugars and creamer and so forth? Way beyond the norm."

"I heard he's cut back, but he still likes all that stuff and still likes it to taste like coffee. My tastebuds are getting a serious workout—blah! I better keep checking myself for excessive hair growth on certain parts of my body."

"It tastes pretty good to me." This was demonstrated by another sip.

Shawn couldn't resist the joke. "Careful, or you'll have to get a new inseam by the afternoon."

Gus didn't pretend to find that funny. He could tell Shawn was going to ask what he was doing there so early. "Two doctors are gone this week. Graduation season. It's like a vacation I didn't even ask for, so many doctors are always gone this time of year. I finished early. Now tell me more about the body you found down in holding. Any leads?"

Gus put the coffee down and opened the white horizontal blinds. The room flooded in the summer light of a late morning. It was hazy out, Gus had seen it smeared against the dark bands of the horizon. Across the way, the only thing visible was Lassiter's neighbor's house, pale orange with bright blue detailing, and a dark brown tile roof. It was a nice neighborhood, but neither he nor Juliet was interested in homeownership. A small house like Lassiter's might cost a half-million. And the maintenance—no. Gus was no more fond of mowing grass and planting flowers than Juliet. Lassiter, however, took care of his own lawn—or called someone to take care of it if he was overwhelmed. Lassiter was annoyingly good at doing things like that, aware of his limitations—or just aware. Even Shawn had planted flowers last month along the front walk and in the tiny backyard. Shawn had an overt fondness for the lemon tree. He often said that the lemon tree and the clawfoot tub were the reasons he was drawn to the house, as if it were his, not Lassiter's. Sometimes Gus wondered—

Shawn stared into his coffee. His brain was still fuzzy. The thoughts he'd had at three in the morning now haunted him. But all of his problems couldn't be solved at three in the morning. He doubted his ability to solve them at three in the afternoon. It was more a slow, day-by-day process. And he hoped, as he had every morning since Sunday, that today would be the day that it started to make sense, that it started to sink in, that the habit of Adrian started to fade.

"I don't have any leads. I don't even have a name." He made quick mental notes of the two important things he had to do that day. Then, remembering Gus—it'd been a while since they'd worked a case together—he said the notes out loud. "I want to go see if Woody has anything for me. And then I need to go to the store. Not for food—I need to go to the store that the body was looting when he was arrested. Maybe something's there."

"Wouldn't the police have caught it?"

Shawn stared at him. Was he serious?

"Sorry," Gus burst into a laugh, "no, no, go on, of course they wouldn't have noticed anything."

They'd only gone there to arrest a looter, not knowing, at the time, that he had no identity, no name. Things he'd refused to say. "Why would someone refuse to give his name?"

"Amnesia?"

"No, and, dude, you need to veer your eyes away from the televisions in those doctor's offices—those soap operas are really rotting your brain meat," Shawn said, finally swinging out of bed. He glanced at his calves: they were not hairier than usual, despite Lassie's intense coffee. He rubbed them with warm palms. "Thank heavens for that! But, no. Lassie seemed so convinced that the guy knew who he was but just refused to say. So they kept him in holding—until he died."

"Well, that's not exactly accurate. They didn't know he was going to die." Gus handed Shawn his jeans, plucked from the chair in the corner. Shawn didn't dip a leg into them right away, just stood there, holding the jeans, staring into space. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Shawn said, because he didn't want to say what he really was thinking. "Going to take a quick shower, I think." He rooted around in a drawer—Gus wasn't bothered by the fact that Shawn had a drawer of clothes at Lassiter's place—and took off for the bathroom. A moment later, he swung back, grabbed the coffee, then toddled back to the bathroom. Gus heard the door close and the water come on.

He poured more coffee into the mug to warm up the brew, then sat in the backyard. The grimy streams of haze-strangled sunlight were ruffled by the leaves of shrubs and sycamores. The breeze was beginning to pick up, and a sweet, natural aroma blended with the scent of the coffee. He checked his phone. The brief text with Lassiter that morning showed up on screen.

_Shawn's still sleeping. Help him look into this dead body thing?_

_Sure_, Gus had written back. _How do I get in?_

_Shouldn't be an issue_.

Meaning that the back door, the sticky back door that anyone trying to rob the place would be fooled by, was unlocked, and the alarm system turned off.

Gus decided to text Lassiter again. _Shawn's in the shower getting ready. Any news on the body he found?_

Lassiter picked up his phone off his desk when Guster's text chime wobbled through the too-quiet station. Strictly speaking, the phone was supposed to be in silent mode while at his desk, but Vick had never reproached him for such a light transgression. She knew he was often in contact with their psychic on retainer. Lassiter read the statement, read the question, then read the statement again. It was odd to think of Shawn standing in his shower, where he'd bathed himself that morning. Thinking it was weird was better than letting it piss him off. He'd stopped being angry about Shawn ages ago. O'Hara used to ask him, when he'd find himself furious at Shawn, "Are you ever going to forgive him for that?" And, at first, he hadn't forgotten what he was supposed to forgive. Then, slowly, he fought to remember what he wasn't supposed to forgive. Of course, though, he knew: it was Lucinda—and Shawn partially responsible for her removal from Santa Barbara, and responsible for Lassiter's official reprimand. The SBPD didn't like their detectives to fall into romantic relationships.

It was any wonder that Vick seemed to embrace Lassiter's personal involvement with Shawn.

Personal involvement wasn't the right phrase.

He found Vick, not in her office but hanging with Officer Tyas. There was no other case that took precedence in the SBPD at that time. It'd been a slow, agonizing week. They were doing anything to appear busy, to be busy. The usual young ruffians were occupied more with graduation and college prep, if they got that far, than engaging in traditional methods of hooliganism. Domestics were way down. It was the usual barrage of stolen items, public lewdness, and solicitation. Tyas was working on new programs to help him in the video department. New video filters, and new technology in general, were constantly streaming in. Vick and Tyas looked at Lassiter when he knocked on the video room door. He pretended not to think about what he was thinking about, that it was the room Shawn often went for naps when he hung out for hours on end, waiting for lab results, waiting for a conviction—or just waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

"Can we talk for a minute?"

Vick nodded at him, gave Tyas a pat on his broad shoulder with a thanks before allowing Carlton to lead. Instead of going all the way to the chief's office, like it was such a long way, he paused her in the middle of the hallway. It was a dead, quiet section of the three-story building. More so than usual. It was no wonder Shawn had migrated to that area to catch up on his sleep. As odd as it was to think that Shawn ever needed sleep.

Vick spoke to him before he spoke to her. Whatever he wanted to say, it wasn't easy for him to talk about. "Any leads on the dead body in holding?"

"No," Lassiter replied. "You do know you assigned Shawn to finding out the body's identity, right?"

"Yeah, I know," she said it through what remained of her tight smile. Her eyes dimmed, just for a half-second. "Doesn't mean that you wouldn't know."

"Please, if Shawn had told me that, it would've been just after he told you. You gave him that assignment, and he'd tell you first to get all the plaudits. He might tell me second—maybe third—possibly even fourth."

"Lassiter."

He snapped back to what he wanted to say. He felt dumb and ridiculous standing in front of her like this. How could he begin? Tit for tat. The tang of revenge. The spice of redemption. "So, do you remember when—when Shawn first started working for us—you—or for the SBPD in general—I had a different partner."

"Yes, Detective Barry. As I recall, you two were sleeping together."

Right for the jugular. Carlton almost bit his lip, but stopped himself. It was sharp, stinging, embarrassing, because he'd liked Detective Barry and had enjoyed being with her. It was a tornado of emotions. His life had been fetid at that point. Odd that it took a hurricane to bring sense to his life, to rid it of tornadoes and hell. "She was removed from this department and relocated."

"Your power of recall is as fine as ever."

"And that happened because it's not appreciated when detectives sleep together."

This gave her pause. She couldn't figure out why he was bringing this up. It had to be about Shawn. Any time Lassiter talked to her, of his own free will, it was about Shawn. "It's department policy. You know that. What's the point of this trip down memory lane, Carlton?"

"Shawn's been staying at my place."

As soon as he said it, Vick's mind went all sorts of directions, and Carlton realized his error.

"In the guest room."

That helped clarify it a little. Not much, Vick thought, but a little. Her fists tightened. She wasn't angry. She wasn't upset. She was intrigued. Yet there was nothing she could do but look Carlton right in the eye and see if he so much as flinched. "He's a consultant. Not a detective. You can do whatever you want to him—within reason."

"I-I don't want to do anything with him." He fumbled for a foothold. His little plan, surely more detailed than the mess he was now standing in, wasn't going so well. "But we—we're friends. He practically lives at my house. For some reason. He's in my shower, right now. Right this very minute! He's probably using my super-expensive eucalyptus body wash. Damn it."

She smiled, turning kind and almost sweet. "Good to hear you say you're friends. About time! So, Carlton, let me know if you want to add him to your benefits as a domestic partner. I'll be sure you get the proper paperwork."

His mouth opened and closed. "You're not listening to me at all—"

"Oh, no, I hear you. Very, very clearly."

"But he—"

"Lives with you. You two have coffee together in the morning and he straightens your tie before you go out the door."

He was getting angrier and angrier. His mouth tightened. His face paled, aside from the two red splotches on his cheeks and the bright light of frustration in his eyes. "But he's a menace! He's messing up my life! You're not going to remove him from the SBPD, are you?"

"He's a consultant," she repeated with deeper emphasis, as if he hadn't understood the first time. "He doesn't work for us. He just gets his paychecks from us. I'm not planning on reprimanding him—or you—for having coffee together in the morning, or for him using your super-expensive eucalyptus body wash. Frankly, Shawn has never smelled better, and your ties have never looked sharper."

He fondled the knot of his tie self-consciously.

"But," she titled forward with an evil smile, "nice try, Lassiter."

Carlton gulped. It had backfired. All of it. "Damn it," he mumbled under his breath.

Vick headed down the hall. She flipped around. "You can still do whatever you want with him, but, Carlton, don't murder him. He's good at what he does."

"Damn it."

She started off again, then angled around long enough to remind him, "Let me know about that benefits package, though, okay?"

He could hear her chuckling. It finally dissipated, leaving him stranded in the debris of Hurricane Shawn. Even without Shawn around, he was still causing issues, spinning chaos, whipping wind.

"Ah, hell."

"So," Tyas had come out of the video room, took a sip of old, cold coffee, and bounced his thick eyebrows up and down, "you and Shawn are living together, huh? Nice! I bet he's one hell of a roommate! Does he clean the toilet?"

Lassiter made a disgusted sound in his throat, embarrassed and tired and angry. The terrible thing was, Shawn did clean the toilet—and he kept the whole house looking rather nice, simple, elegant. Carlton had found himself with spare time when he'd expected to have to dust or sweep or clean the toilet. It was always done for him. He dashed back to the haven of his desk. It was a safe sphere that repelled everything Shawn Spencer.

At least for a second. His eyes bobbed to the succulent on his desk. Shawn had named it Hercules. A lot of their succulents were named after gods. Except Brad, the first one. But Shawn joked and called him Braditus, as if that was supposed to make up for him being not quite like the others.

His phone blurted with Shawn's recognizable text sound.

"No wonder you always smell so good," the message said. "This eucalyptus body wash is AMAZING. I've never felt my skin so exfoliated or smooth or fresh. I feel like a peeled carrot but I smell like a garden in Provence."

"Damn it," Carlton grumbled again. He sent back a displeased emoji.

Shawn smirked at the emoji as he waited for Gus to finish getting rid of some coffee. _That face looks just like you_, he sent. _We're going to go look into that dead body now_.

"We?" Carlton asked out loud. Frustrated with the whole typing thing, he sent a call to Shawn. He expected Shawn to answer with a smartass remark. He wasn't entirely disappointed.

"Smells don't travel through phones, Lassie. Not yet, anyway. Do you want us to drop by later? I will let you sniff me. Scratch and sniff Shawn—hard to resist, I know." It was nice to have Lassiter. These annoyances, such disguised flirtations, were taking the sting out of the caverns the acid rain of Adrian had carved.

"I don't need to scratch and sniff you."

An officer walked by, curling his head back to second-guess Detective Lassiter's remark. Lassiter ignored it, and tried not to replay all that Vick had said to him a minute before.

"But I'm delectable," Shawn said, "and my back is a little dry and could use some lotion. You up for it?"

"That's not happening. Only drop by if you find out who the guy is." Lassiter played dumb; he hadn't told Gus not to say that the suggestion had been his idea, and he doubted Gus would tell it to Shawn. "And who's with you? Guster?"

"He finished his rounds early. I got a couple of omens we're going to follow-up on."

Omens—those were like psychic versions of leads, right? But Carlton didn't ask about that, just waited until Shawn spoke again.

"Want to meet for lunch?"

"No," Carlton answered. Part of him was surprised by the question. Part of him wanted to go. He was just sick of spending time with Shawn. Yet that wasn't true, either. He was sick of wanting to spend time with Shawn.

"Come on, meet us for lunch. Tom Blair's Pub? Jules will come. It'll be like a double-date, without, you know, awkwardness. If you have lettuce in your teeth, I'll actually tell you that you have lettuce in your teeth and not be too embarrassed to tell you that you have lettuce in your teeth." He got no response. "Tell you what, I'll call you in an hour. If we have information for you, you can meet us for lunch and I'll tell you about it then. Deal?"

Carlton looked around the station, sure that others watched him, sure that everyone knew he was on the phone with Shawn. No one was looking at him. No one was paying attention. He rubbed his forehead with his palm, aggravated, disturbed. The problem with Shawn wasn't that he wasn't just annoying for his antics and tactics, but that he made Carlton annoyed at himself for wanting to be around Shawn's energy and methods. For observational purposes. For the exuberance that seemed to infect him when he and Shawn breathed the same air. "Yeah," he sighed, leaning resignedly into his chair, "all right. If you have something, I will meet you for lunch."

"I'll definitely have something for you. Hope you're hungry."

Why was Shawn so sure? Psychic intuition? Plain old intuition? Carlton wasn't sure he believed in psychics. He was less sure he disbelieved in Shawn. "Yeah, we'll see."

Gus returned from the bathroom—finally. "Gotta go, Lass."

"Shawn—wait."

"What?"

Carlton held the line in stiff silence for a long three seconds. "Do you have insurance?"

"Insurance?"

"Yeah—health insurance."

"Of course." Because Gus was looking at him, too. And what was one lie to one person compared to one lie told to others? "Yeah, yeah, I have insurance. Why, are you planning on maiming me in our next fake brawl? I'd hate to break an arm. Not sure my policy covers injuries sustained during mud wrestling."

Carlton would hate to break one of his arms, too. "No—no," he was subdued and bothered. Was Shawn lying? Shawn was a cornucopia of lies and truths, honesties and falsities. Clouds and sun. Mist and hail. Hurricanes and tornadoes. He couldn't keep them straight. He didn't know what to believe. "Just—you know—be careful out there."

"Yeah," Shawn replied, not sure if they were playing around, if they were being honest, if their words were holding prismatic meanings and emotions for no reason at all. "Yeah, I will." Instead of saying bye, Shawn dropped the phone from his ear and hit the red button to end the call. He stared into space for a second—thoughts on Carlton, thoughts wending their way back to the master of his discomfort: Adrian. When they'd talked about it, insurance and compounding the paperwork, the mundanities, of their lives. He couldn't keep doing this to himself. He had a body to identify. The Chief was counting on him. As were the body's family members. The body probably had a family—or at the very least, maybe the body had a best friend that was looking for him. Or a reluctant roommate. Or even a cat. "Ready to go, buddy?"

"What'd Lassiter want?"

"Just asking me a couple of questions."

"About insurance?"

"So it seems. I have no control over his brain. The contents of his sock drawer, maybe, but not his brain."

He slipped into the tiny wagon, Gus's latest corporate vehicle: white, dinky, four doors, four cylinders, and about eighty miles to the gallon (no, not really, more like 35, but that was great for a non-hybrid model). New last year, it still had fresh car scent that could be overwhelming. Shawn rolled the window down—manually. Central Coast Pharma didn't like to put a lot of money into their wee wheeled fleet. It didn't have power windows or power locks. Shawn was just glad he didn't have to get out and help Gus crank start it, like a 1915 Ford Model T. He settled in, snapped his seat belt in place. Lassiter was on his mind, and not, for any length longer than necessary, how it'd been to ride around in Adrian's father's Nissan 350Z all last summer, until the weather cooled— "Scary as this is for me to admit, psychic and everything that I am, I can honestly say that I don't know what goes on in Lassie's head."

"Probably just as well. Imagine if you did."

"Imagine if I didn't imagine that. I'd feel so much better."

Gus wasn't sure. He and Juliet talked about Shawn and Lassiter, like this: _Shawn & Lassiter_. Not the Oxford comma version of, say, Shawn-comma, and Lassiter-period.

Gus had told Juliet a little bit about Adrian, without spilling all the details, because there were very few details to spill. Gus hadn't known Adrian that well. Shawn was vague when doing the traditional Q & A:

_When did you two meet?_ —The spring—summer? I don't know. It was a nice day.

_When did you two start going out?_ — Uh, not sure. That's—I don't know. July? Yeah, July.

_But didn't you meet him in before that?_ — These things can take time, you know.

Gus knew. He knew, also, that he'd never get a straight answer from Shawn. Shawn himself didn't know. Asking Shawn what had happened last Saturday was simply an impossible thing.

When Juliet wanted to know what happened to snap whatever Shawn and Adrian had, Gus had to shake his head and shrug and say he didn't know. Something bad, that was all he knew. Something so bad that Shawn was turning against himself. The speculation was that Shawn had done something wrong, or something that Shawn had perceived as wrong. Shawn would've been furious and sad otherwise, had it not been his fault. But Shawn placing the blame on himself brought on the collection of emotional discharges they'd witnessed the last few days. Gus didn't even know when Shawn and Adrian split. He didn't even know how deep their relationship was. Only that it was deep. Only that the breakup was bad. Gus no longer wanted to pry, and Juliet didn't ask him to, just for Shawn's sake. There was no use in prodding him for answers that would only hurt him more. He'd talk about it when he was ready. And, meanwhile, Juliet had fun talking about Lassiter's friendship with Shawn. "Or whatever it is," she added hastily, flinging up a hand because the thing between Lassiter and Shawn was without definition.

"Where we going, anyway?"

"To find the identity of the body."

"And how are we going to start that? Do you want to check the nearest Target? Or are identities more of a Rite Aid kind of thing? There's one over off State Street, not that far—"

"Let's see Woody first."

Gus tried not to balk. Shawn was better at dealing with Woody than just about anyone. In another life, another time, Woody and Shawn might've been related. They shared humor and eccentricities. Gus had trouble dealing with Woody, and usually stood off to the side, asked questions if he could think of any. They didn't have to see Woody very often, and somehow it was freer for Gus to see Woody with just Shawn rather than one or both of the detectives along for the visit.

"Fine," Gus said. "But I'm not doing more talking than I have to."

"That's all right," Shawn said, knowing without knowing how he knew, "I don't think we'll be alone with him—at least, not for very long."

Shawn remembered how hard it was to come back from a case and not talk to Adrian about work. He'd had stories about Woody that would've had them rolling in laughter. But he'd stopped talking about work at a certain point. Was it Adrian's disapproval, or had that only been imagined? Shawn wasn't sure, now, why he'd stopped. A glint of fire in Adrian's eye, perhaps, when it was mentioned. Like he didn't believe in psychics, like he refused to believe in them at all.

"Every time you disbelieve in psychics," Shawn had once joked with him, following a successful end to a difficult case, "somewhere, a psychic dies."

"That's not why I don't want to hear about your job and you know it," Adrian responded, lowering himself to kiss Shawn's cheek in greeting. He patted Shawn at the hip, moved his hand over a little to grab what belonged to him. "I do believe in psychics, Shawn Spencer, I do, I do!"

Shawn let the memory fade, staring out the window to Santa Barbara. He felt like he was seeing it again for the first time, really, like he'd been drowning in a Ventura-colored fog for the last year. "Where are we going?" he asked Gus.

Gus did a double-take of Shawn. "To Woody's. Doctor Strode. The coroner."

"Medical Examiner."

"Same thing."

"I beg to differ. I asked you to take us there, right?"

"Yeah," Gus said, dragging the response out: it now sounded like two syllables instead of one. Both were full of astonishment and concern. "Are you all right?"

"Just trying to—to be here. I don't know if I had my heart broken, my spirit, my soul, or my brain. Maybe the Wizard of the Emerald City will let me know so I can fix it."

Gus, hurting inside, forced out a complacent response. "I hope he does, too."

"There's no place like home," Shawn whispered to the shadow of himself barely visible in the window. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Gus squirm uncomfortably in the seat. He harkened back to their earlier talk. "I told you. Lassiter's coffee is no joke. You're going to need a whole new inseam."

Gus just burrowed sarcastic anger into Shawn with a thick stare.


	8. To the Highest Height

**VIII. To the Highest Height**

In what seemed like the innocent days of his youth, when he'd first donned a uniform, Carlton had heard an anecdote that suggested being a cop was 95% boredom and 5% terror. That wasn't the most truthful of statistics, anecdotal or not. Yet the idea behind it felt accurate. Carlton found it difficult, almost impossible, to be bored at work, since there was always something to do.

Except when there wasn't. Dispatch had been quiet. There were very few assignments to be handed out, and very few assignments to be given to Detective Lassiter. O'Hara's impending nuptials meant that she was trying to keep her cases light and fluffy, like a collection of kittens, but she wanted overtime, too, and took any assignment that came to Carlton's desk that he wasn't interested in. Lately, that'd been about all of them. And Arlette, the other detective, was doing much the same thing, except his overtime was to help pay for his daughter's band trip, not his second marriage after the first failed one. Lassiter had no such need for overtime. His life was going pretty well.

He tapped a pencil on his desk. Waiting for something to happen. He could find a task to complete, he was sure of it. At the time, however, nothing sprang to mind. Then that nagging sensation, like he was forgetting something, something important, started haunting his thoughts. It enlarged, threatening to engulf him if he didn't figure out what it was. Had he left the coffee pot on? No—he'd reset it and put it on a timer so Shawn would have coffee when he woke up.

There was a sentence he never thought he'd ever think, in any kind of scenario, ever.

Did Shawn even need coffee, really? Wasn't caffeine produced by his biological system, anyway? It sure seemed like it.

Lassiter half-expected Shawn to wake up in the morning from some god-sent lightning bolt that sent him all the energy and super-charged gregariousness he'd need to get through one twenty-four hour period. No such luck, however. Shawn seemed to be descended from mortals, as other humans. Though far from being like other humans. What was he, anyway? Psychic? No, probably not. Magician? Carlton didn't think so, but it was probably closer to the truth. Master manipulator and magician?

He smirked to himself in a congratulatory manner. There you go, Carlton, now you're thinking. Master manipulator-slash-magician.

His egotistical and silent self-praise collapsed as O'Hara, looking snappy in a dark blue suit, appeared from nowhere. She stood at the side of his desk and he coughed to cover up his perplexity and self-consciousness.

"Hey, O'Hara, what's up?"

Her eyes did that tiny wincey thing when she was trying to figure out what was going on. She knew a lot about Carlton, more and more as Gus was willing to disclose whatever Shawn told him. Very rarely, Shawn would tell her about her partner in direct, usually humorous ways. She'd learned a little by hanging out with Carlton, too. The four of them could have a lot of fun together, if they chose. Even one time, it'd been the six of them, going out to the theater with Shawn's father and mother. That felt like ages ago. Wedding stuff was getting in the way of socializing. "Hey, Carlton, do you play Trivial Pursuit?"

"No," he said with a slight shake of his head. "I refuse to play it. Why?"

"Why do you refuse to play it?"

"Because I feel that it is unfair."

"How?"

He clammed up and leaned back in his chair. "I don't want to say."

O'Hara did that wincey thing again. "Hmm. You're no good at it."

Actually, he was quite good at it and didn't enjoy getting yelled at by those forced to play with him. He chose to answer using a way that might appeal to her feminine senses. He knew what she was thinking about him and Shawn being all friendly-friendly. "Can you honestly stand there and tell me that you would rejoice in watching me and Spencer playing Trivial Pursuit against one another?"

Her eyebrows went up. "Shawn would. It's, like, one of his dreams in life, to get you to play Trivial Pursuit against him."

"Not going to happen." He changed the subject. There was enough Shawn in his life to last a while. "It's too bad you and Guster didn't plan on getting married now. It's been dead in here—no pun intended. What with the dead body in holding and all. You realize that when August comes around, and you do go on your honeymoon, we'll be swamped."

"I won't care," she smiled, a touch of sourness that cavorted with his, "I won't be here. And you'll be all alone. Wait. No, you won't. You'll have Shawn."

He hadn't thought of it that way. Maybe he'd been avoiding thinking of it that way. His eyes got a certain glaze, and maybe he was heading into that 5% terror that he was just thinking about. "Is it too late for me to sign up for some vacation time? When is your honeymoon again?" He pretended as though he was going to write it down when she told him. He didn't get that far.

"If you're done scaring yourself, Carlton, let's go over and see Woody."

His little world went on pause. That's what he forgot to do, talk to Woody about the body, the nameless, nameless body in holding that Shawn had found yesterday. Still, that didn't mean that he had to race over there to find the info. "Can we just talk to him on the phone?"

Her expression bordered sympathetic. "He doesn't like discussing business over the telephone. You know that."

He did. It was common knowledge. "I was hoping he'd changed his mind. People can change, you know."

Juliet left that one alone, too many possible jokes and jabs rested there. It was fun teasing Carlton about Shawn, but she didn't want to overdo. It was something that she and Gus laughed about, and one of the reasons they ever started spending time together outside of work. She remembered one of the early times she and Gus hung out, and they were talking about Shawn and Carlton. In a happy, excited state, Juliet had blurted out, "You know, I kinda ship it." Gus, at first, hadn't realized what she'd meant. The moment it dawned on him, the two of them laughed like they'd never laughed before. She wouldn't admit that Shawn and Carlton were solely responsible for her infatuation with Gus, but they certainly helped. They joked about making a speech at the wedding that included the involuntary matchmaking assistance provided by Shawn and Carlton.

Carlton swung himself into his jacket. "Let's get this over with."

As they were heading out of the building, Juliet asked, "Any plans tonight, Carlton?"

"No," he said, way, way too quickly to mean nothing. "No, I have no plans," now said too slowly. "Why?"

"Just making small talk. I thought you and Shawn were going to do something."

"Not that I know of. And does it look like the end of the world?" Carlton ducked into the vehicle.

"He's still staying at your place, right?"

Juliet heard him give a pule and a cry and a moan as she got in. His red face was full of pain and agony. Laughing, she guessed, would not be an acceptable reaction. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, yeah," he squeaked. "Just tried to slam my ankle in the car door. Otherwise, no, yeah, great."

It hung on Juliet's lips to apologize, as if her questions about Shawn, her hints that they might do an activity together that evening, had resulted in his lost concentration, his smarting ankle smarter than his ability to express his feelings. If she had caused him disorder, part of her was pleased about it. What did that say about her? She didn't want Carlton angry at her, shake his head and glare into emptiness while putting up thick walls of silence between them. She merely wanted him to come to his senses. Her phone vibrated, a text from Gus. "We're at Woody's. Where you at?"

"On our way."

"Lassiter with you?"

"By the grace of the sun and moon, yes."

"Good."

"Remind me to tell you a story later."

Gus tried to hide his slanted smirk from Shawn, but Shawn was giving his long-winded greetings to Woody. They sallied salutations like Medieval courtiers. Gus worked his thumbs to send a little love-token to his affianced. "I love your later stories. They fascinate me… like you do."

She hugged the phone to her and smiled into the vacant distance. It disappeared when she looked at the hard profile next to her. At times, it was difficult to imagine that Lassiter was ever in love with anyone enough to want to get married. Of course, there was Detective Barry, but that hadn't lasted long. And then there was Shawn. At times, it disappointed her, that this whole Shawn and Lassiter thing probably would never go anywhere. If it didn't, it wouldn't be because she didn't try.

"Are you coming to lunch with me and Gus and Shawn this afternoon?"

Carlton's mind breezed back to the easy conversation with Shawn earlier. "I have made neither a promise nor a guarantee, O'Hara."

"It's lunch, Lassiter," she sighed, "not an engagement."

Maybe he was overreacting. A smidgen. He missed hanging out with Juliet and Gus. They were fun. He needed more fun in his life, lest he forget what fun was. He knew what fun was not. It was not anticipating going home that evening just to see what Shawn was up to. That might be interesting, but it wasn't fun. "Where are you eating again?"

"Just Tom Blair's. Shawn's been into this other place, too. Cafe del Sol. It's off Milpas, though. It can be a pain to get over there and back to the station at lunch time. So much traffic, and parts of it are down to one lane with construction."

"Well," he remained neutral, already knowing he'd go, "let's see what Woody has to say, first. If it's something big, this investigation might blow right through lunch."

It didn't. The only thing Lassiter nearly blew through was Shawn standing in the hallway right inside the building. Carlton grew distant and quiet as soon as he saw Shawn. It was easy to see that Juliet and Gus had been aware of one another's whereabouts, and had concocted the idea of meeting there as one quartet. It annoyed Carlton, but he did enjoy seeing how well Shawn and Woody got along. Shawn had mentioned once to Carlton that he found Woody to be a bit of a weirdo, and Carlton had resisted making a comment that shone the light on Shawn's own weirdness. Try as he could to be aloof in Woody's presence, Carlton couldn't quite manage it, no more than any of the others. Woody had an infectious charm and stupidity, a warmth of character despite the chilly temperature of the rooms he worked in.

"Shawn, my little panda bear, have you come to see me about a horse, or are you looking for cupcakes? Either way, you're probably in the wrong place." Woody didn't wait for Shawn to give a remark, and went directly to Carlton. "Double vision today," he said, drawing his palms close together, further apart, with the detective and the psychic detective side-by-side, "like seeing two of you today—whoop!" hands together, then apart, "bwah! Lassie, how are you? Chasing bones today? I have one for you here in my fine necropolis."

No one knew what to say to this. The four of them stood around staring at one another. Carlton, making his own precedence, gave an itch to the back of his head, an almost nervous gesture, before venturing to speak. Actually, daring himself to speak.

"Do you have any info on the John Doe that came in yesterday afternoon?"

Woody's eyes darted back and forth in his tan, chubby-cheeked face. His eyebrows were bushy, moved a lot like little caterpillars when he spoke. "The guy from holding? Found by you, Mr. Spencer?" He went back to looking at his giant tablet, where information was stored. But he was currently playing a tile-matching game. "Hmm, yes, I do. But nothing so radical as the poor fellow's name, I assure you! You will not find that here! Search, you and you will find—but not here."

"Damn it," Carlton said, having said it about eight hundred times in the last two hours.

"He does look a little familiar, though," Woody said, scrunching his face up, disturbed by an old thought. He gave it away too soon. "But I guess if you see one dead John Doe, maybe you've seen them all."

"How'd he die?" asked Gus. He could get direct answers from Dr. Strode if direct questions were asked.

"Well, Guster," Woody sucked in a breath, set the slow and tedious contraption aside, and poured attention on the person requiring the answer, "I'm afraid our little Johnny Apple-Doe here died of the big fat nothing."

Gus looked at Juliet, then back to Woody. If he dared look at Shawn, he'd either burst into an inappropriate laugh or into a fury of inappropriate—but highly satisfying—sobs. "What's that mean?"

Shawn was quick to reply in Woody's momentary hesitation. "Natural causes."

Woody touched his nose and bounced on his heels. "Yes, Mr. Psychic."

Carlton rolled his eyes. "At the very least, I expected it to be alcohol poisoning. Guy was drunk as the day is long. Do you have anything else, Doctor?"

"Anything strange?" tacked on Shawn.

"Anything useful?" asked Juliet, crossing her arms and trying to stand inconspicuously off to the side. It was a sunny room, somehow always bright, but it was cold and full of strange things: implements, tools, whirring machines, unknown doohickeys and oversized mechanisms. Sometimes when she breathed too deeply there came the scent of naphthalene and vinegar, and a stench like old coffee poured over gym socks from the days of Rameses.

Woody took these queries as they were given, as they echoed in his head. He pointed to Lassiter first. "Yes. Alcohol may have played a factor in his death, but it did not kill him. And please know that you're looking very robust today, Lassie. Do you have a date tonight? No matter if not. You could get one easily."

Carlton tried not to roll his eyes again. Or move. Or stick his hands in his pockets. He did, however, give a soft and yielding little smile. He was pretty sure he looked no different that day than he had any other day. Unless the ironed trousers counted.

"I do have other 'else' things, yes," continued Woody. "Shawn, you asked for something strange, didn't you?"

"I'm really not sure at this point," Shawn replied, lost.

"Well, the strange thing is that there were some errors at the lab, so everything is a few days behind. Ergo, alas, no tox screen and no blood work from said tox screen. Is that not strange? And, Detective O'Hara, Lady Juliet of the House of Capulet, lemme see—you asked for something useful. Hmm. Useful." From the printer in the next room, separated only by a half wall, the half-wall covered in a diagram of the human brain, Woody took a couple sheets of paper and handed one to Lassiter, one to O'Hara.

"Nothing for us?" asked Shawn. "Me or Gus?"

"Leave me out of this," Gus said. He waved a politely dismissive hand at Woody. "No offense, Doctor, but I don't need anything from you."

Two small pieces of paper were tugged free of the confines of the white coat's deep front pockets. He handed one to Shawn, one to Gus. "Coupons for that ice cream place on Mission Street. Can't remember the name of it, but it's really good. Used to go there with the wife. She had an affair with the owner, I think, at one point, but I might be making that up because it seems like habit now. Enjoy, boys! Take dates! Have a good time! And lick stuff. Just the ice cream, though."

"Dude," Gus leaned in to Shawn while Carlton asked Woody questions about items on the more vital sheet he had received, "isn't the ice cream place on Mission Street called Mission Street Ice Cream?"

"And Yogurt," added Shawn, but he gave a solid, single nod, "otherwise, yes. Are you going to use yours? I'm totally going to use mine." He started pulling the paper from Gus's fingers. It was gripped and hidden.

"No way. I'm keeping it, Shawn. It's a dollar off! And it doesn't expire until the end of the year! My kind of coupon."

Shawn's eyes stirred with fires: amusement, a tingle of hurt, a dollop of jealousy. "Fine, you and Juliet go and save fifty cents on a cone each. That's, like, nothing off your weird, not-ice-cream ice cream! But I'm saving mine for a dollar off of something really, really delicious and really, really expensive. Because I'm single and don't have to share my delicious, creamy bounty with some dumb girl."

Gus snickered, because Shawn hardly meant that.

"Yeah, no, I didn't mean that," Shawn admitted. Juliet O'Hara was hardly some dumb girl. "Ten-year-old me still talks without a filter sometimes, especially when it comes to ice cream."

Gus knew that from his years of knowing Shawn—the good years, the bad years, the years they barely talked while Shawn roamed the country, twirled his way through the dust of the world. Mission Street Ice Cream (& Yogurt) might be one of those small, inexpressible delights that had brought Shawn back to Santa Barbara. Gus liked to think it had something to do with himself, something to do with Henry Spencer. As to why Shawn stayed—that was a different matter. Gus had been looking for signs for it for years—a signal that Shawn would give off that he would leave again, go chase moons across oceans and find echoes in Tyrollean valleys. So far, though, nothing. Juliet had assured him that Shawn would stay. He'd stay at least until the wedding. After that, well, it was anyone's guess. Gus tried to think of how much fun the wedding would be, and not what would happen if Shawn declared at the reception that he was now going to hunt mermaids or unicorns.

"Porcelain chips—" Carlton was saying, and Shawn focused on the words. He was able to scan the list from where he stood, gleaned a couple of pertinent items, but nothing too significant. Carlton caught Shawn eyeing the paper, dropped his arm, and wondered what Shawn saw and what Shawn already knew. He wouldn't say anything about the porcelain chips until Shawn brought it up. Little pitchers have big ears, after all. And even though Shawn's hair was an abominable length, he still had plenty of ear showing beneath that hair—all the better for hearing with. A tiny phrase, like porcelain chips, might set off Shawn's vibrations—or whatever the hell they were. It would shuffle the cards and collect the coins to practice his sleight of hand, lure them to his magic, his games.

Juliet looked less interested in the porcelain chips than the other item on Strode's short list. "Chemical burns?"

"Yes, Detective," Strode said, "on his feet." He gave a pause. "Want to see them?"

"No," Juliet said, while Carlton said, "Sure." Gus and Shawn refrained from comment, although Gus whimpered. Shawn had already seen The Body in its present state, and Juliet didn't need to see it. Carlton's interest was mechanical.

"Just send us the photos," he decided to say. "Do you know what the chemical burns are from?"

"Alkaline or acid base?" chirped in Shawn, springing ahead without meaning to. He shoved his hands in his pockets when four sets of eyes bombarded him with unasked questions. "Sorry, been watching a lot of _CSI_."

"Oh, which one, Shawn?"

"_Miami_," he replied dutifully. "There are no other _CSI's_, in my opinion. Horatio is a god."

Before Strode could go into his impression of David Caruso playing Horatio, because _everyone _had an impression, Carlton gave a wave of his hand that distracted. "What were the burns?"

"More like a bubbling, like an irritation. I couldn't find any residue left on his feet," Strode said, "so it must've happened a couple of days before he died. There was some minor blistering, before it would heal. So, yeah, two days before he died he got those burns, I'd say. Probably something simple, like bleach. One that might have a higher pH than average. Say around twelve or thirteen."

"Most bleaches average out around there, though," Gus said. Shawn was glad Gus said it. He was trying to be the idiot in this conclave.

"True, Burton."

Gus and Shawn gave each other knuckle bumps.

"However," Strode went on, "it really does vary by brand and by grade. Bleach from Target might have a pH of eleven, while bleach made for and sold at Vons might have a pH of twelve."

Shawn wish he hadn't said Vons. Of all the grocery stores in all the world—he had to mention Vons. Shawn's insides trembled. Maybe it was colder in there than he thought.

Juliet spoke next. "But the burns didn't kill him."

"Negative, Ghostrider," Strode replied. "Might've been an accident, a work accident. Or, you know, someone was torturing him for information. Or he was a masochist. Take your pick. It's not my job to come up with theories. I handle the facts. You boys and girls in blue are the ones who are supposed to use those facts to find out why he decided to wade through a puddle of bleach long enough to burn his little tootsies."

Juliet sighed, glaring at Lassiter. It wasn't a lot to go on, but it was definitely strange.

"His liver was enlarged. Alcohol, like I said. I don't have the alcohol information yet because the lab is behind, but you'll know when I know. Judging by the stink of him, and the size of his liver, I say his blood alcohol level was pretty high. Maybe twice the legal limit. Don't know, just guessing, and I still prefer the facts and science over guessing games. But, all and all, he just died. People do that sometimes. When you least expect it. Poof—keel over. When it's your time, it's your time. You know," Woody held a upward forefinger to his finely-shaped philtrum, "I have my own theory as to how Mr. Natural Causes met his demise."

None of them offered to listen to it. Woody took it as a sign to continue, though his audience silently wished—wished with all their might—that he would not go on.

He did, though. He did.

"Do you remember last summer, when it rained so much, and the police station had to be bombed because the insects were so bad?"

Only Juliet sprang to recognize this as a fact of recent history. It had happened, after all. And the insects had been devastating. "Like something from a horror movie," she concluded, grossing herself out again. "The women's restroom downstairs was enough to—" She stared at Woody. "You think it has something to do with the insecticide?"

"No," Woody said. "I checked his lungs and they were decent. His brain wasn't deprived of oxygen through any sort of chemical presence. Although that is how we all die, usually: brain death."

"Charming," Lassiter quipped, verging on annoyed, and also feeling claustrophobic. He sidled over two inches from Shawn, into the empty space closest to the door. That helped. He could still smell Shawn's clean hair, and it annoyed. It smelled like his own clean hair. He was never having Shawn stay at his place again. Not without his own personal care products, anyway. It was unsettling having Shawn smell not at all like Shawn, a smell like musty popcorn lightly buttered with sandalwood deodorant. He was pulling at the end of his nose without realizing it. Woody was still talking, and he wasn't listening.

"—I looked in his ears for a bug, too, but didn't find one. It's possible that it crawled in, rendered its beautiful and natural havoc, then crawled out again." Woody paused, thoughtful. "Which means that it's still in this office of mine—somewhere. H'mm." He seemed befuddled by the notion that a centipede, or a multi-legged insect, perhaps a stowaway from an alien civilization, that had inadvertently but brilliantly murdered Johnny Doe, was now loose around him. The tablet was grabbed off the nearby counter.

"Gotta go. Stay fresh, cheese bags!" He wound into the other room, whispering gently, "Here, deadly little insect. Come to Papa Woody—"

"Ick," Juliet said, cringing, as soon as she emerged in the gray skies and sea-swept air. "Ew, ew, ew! I feel like I have things crawling on me! Blah! Gus! Do I have things crawling on me?"

"There's nothing crawling on you," Gus said, wiping the back of her neck, then patting the golden-brown braid back in place. He couldn't resist giving her a pat on the back, then twiddling his fingers again along her neck. Juliet's reaction was a shriek. Gus jerked his hand away, chortling at her.

"I don't know," Shawn muttered Lassie's direction while the two lovers teased one another, "not sure I'd want to get on their bad side, you know? I mean, who knows what sort of pranks they'd pull on one another just to get even? Remember the swamp monster prank?"

"Mmm," Carlton hummed, raising one eyebrow, lowering the other, as he watched Gus and Juliet on the sidewalk ahead of him. They laughed at each other: they looked like they were in love. Probably how they should look. "It was a marvelous prank, though. And they got us. They got us good."

"Sometimes I wonder if their marriage will be one huge prank."

Carlton gave him a sidelong glance. He was kidding, right?

Shawn's mouth slanted when he saw Juliet and Gus displaying the sweetness that made the solid base of their relationship. Gus lifted her hand to his lips and left a kiss there. "Nah," he amended, "guess it wouldn't be. They mean too much to each other. But I do think it'll be one hell of a party. So," he dove them back to the body, "porcelain chips, huh? What's that about?"

"Isn't that what you're supposed to find out?" Lassiter gave him an ornery wink then threw himself into his car, closed the door. He shut out Shawn.

Shawn wondered why he'd stopped at the side of the cruiser, as if he were going to with Lassiter back to the station, and hadn't gone two more cars ahead to meet Gus at the hatchback. He gave a shake of his head, squinting into the sun. "What the—" He made no attempt to cover the error. And, by then, Juliet and Gus had said their farewells. They'd see each other at lunch, they said, and Juliet said bye to Shawn before getting into the passenger's seat next to Carlton, and Shawn got into the hatchback passenger seat next to Gus. He buckled his belt. It felt all sorts of wrong—the belt, the car, this whole thing, this weird, weird madness. And the body.

"Porcelain chips," Shawn grumbled aloud. Whether for himself or for Gus, he didn't care. "Bleach burns."

Gus was still lost in the jokes he and Juliet had entangled just then, and the nucleus of jokes coming on future sunrises, still wee germs of ideas that made them laugh so hard they couldn't finish plotting their feisty mayhem. He didn't hear what Shawn said. "Woody's getting weirder, isn't he?"

People were like that. Weirder and weirder the more they opened up, the more time you spent with them. The more you used their body wash and drank their coffee. "I think his pieces will fall into place eventually. Still, a dollar coupon. He always gives us something when we go there."

"It's like going to the dentist and getting a sticker. Except it's—just freakier."

"You got that right. You and Jules still meeting for lunch?"

"Yeah, at one." Gus looked at the clock on the dash, and Shawn did, too. It wasn't yet noon. Woody's place was like some kind of time wormhole. "Did you ask Lassiter about lunch?"

Shawn chose to stick with his instincts and changed the subject. "Let's head over to the store that the body looted when he was arrested."

"Where is it? What store?"

Juliet hadn't told him this much. Shawn barely had it in him to be surprised. Other items of greater importance were on their minds. He gave general directions with a wave of a hand. "Englers."

"That place? Man," he threw the car into drive and eked it from the curb, "this day just keeps getting weirder. That place always gave me the creeps. Like that place down closer to the water that you like to go to. Have good hamburgers."

"Tanglevine Club."

"Yeah."

"Old speakeasy. Like Englers. No, dude, other way. Go back to Garden Street, then hang a left." Shawn threw Gus into a thorough regard. "Since when do I have a better sense of direction than you?"

"I can make mistakes, Shawn. And it's not like we can't get there going this way."

Shawn recognized the car ahead of them. Carlton's cruiser. "You just wanted to follow Jules—subconsciously."

"Well, I didn't want to follow Lassiter, consciously or subconsciously."

Shawn pondered what to say to this. It was a personal delight to tease Gus and Juliet about his relationship with Lassie, such as it was. "He smells really wonderful today, by the way. Did you catch a whiff of him?"

Gus's gaze narrowed on the horizon. "Please," said thinly, tightly, because he didn't want to irk Shawn, didn't want Shawn to know that he was onto his fake flirtations—his all-around fakeness when it came to Lassiter. He remembered his talks with Juliet about their friends, that they were like a couple, but one beyond the first bloom of love and into the part where it became bitter and nasty. The part he never wanted to get to with Juliet. "One of these days, Shawn, that whole flirty thing you do with him is going to backfire. And I want to be there when it does."

"You will be. I plan to sell tickets." Shawn pushed his hands together in his lap. The cruiser turned left on a green arrow. Gus waited until it was safe to make a right turn. Shawn bounced around partial confessions in his mind before settling on one that might make Gus understand. "It helps me forget about Adrian."

As Shawn suspected, the unleashed, unfiltered idea kept Gus sympathetic and silent.

"Turn right at the next street. Let's go the back way," Shawn suggested.

Gus's hand wound tightly around the steering wheel before he said what he wanted. It had to be gutted from him. "You know, you should come to lunch with us. With or without Lassiter. We've barely been able to hang out since the engagement, and now I know why you never had Friday nights free for the last—what was it?—the last year? I wish you'd told me about Adrian ages ago." He caught what he'd said, shook his head. "No, you did. I just didn't know what it was like. What was he like, anyway?"

Shawn pulled his lips in and chewed on them, winced. "Too soon."

"Sorry. I didn't think about that. But when it isn't, you can talk to me. You know that, right?" Gus returned his eyes to the road, his mind on where they were going. But it didn't stay there long. He sighed. "Look, Shawn—if I'd known he was going to turn out to be such an ass, I wouldn't have been so nice to him. As it was, I barely knew him."

The four of them had only hung out a few times, gone to a few dinners, had a few beers, a few laughs. It no longer seemed relevant. It seemed like actions in the past that ought to be ripped away, poured into the oblivion next to the oblivion that Shawn was still trying to get to. "I've been feeling a bit better."

"Good, good," said Gus, unsure how to follow this. "And I am sorry—sorry you're going through this and sorry it hurts so badly. I knew it was pretty bad if you were willing to stay at your dad's. What's going on with your apartment, anyway? Flea-bombing?"

"Broken ceiling." Shawn let his eyes glaze across buildings, businesses, homes, cars, in that clustered, closed-in part of Santa Barbara. He and Gus used to get crazy when they were kids, ten to twelve years old, a few memories of them slightly older, and take their bikes on the bus and go into town from their slightly suburban homesteads. He could speak casually and blandly about it now. "And I haven't lived there in five months."

Gus's foot lifted off the gas. He was glad for the upcoming red light. His nerves exploded, sharpened like knives against his insides. It carved out warnings and questions. He tried throwing them at Shawn, the rapidity too great. "You—what? For—five months? Shawn, you'd better start talking. Say something. Anything. Please."

He had little to say that Gus couldn't figure out, but he understood his friend's reaction. Shawn hadn't told anyone. "My lease was up at the end of July, anyway. I just—just stayed with Adrian and didn't go back."

"You've been living in Ventura—this whole time? In Ventura?"

"You're going supersonic."

"In Ventura? I don't believe this!"

"Calm your man-tits, Gus. Yes, in Ventura. It's not on the other side of the world, you know. It's like the working-man's version of Santa Barbara. I liked it there. We had a neighborhood, a grocery store, a delicious and diverse array of restaurants. I'd get up when he got up to go to work, and I'd just stay home or ride into Santa Barbara, do whatever. It was fine. Anyway, the fact that you didn't know I'd moved out of the laundromat should tell you how often you or our friends ever visited."

Gus hyper-jumped all of that. "What about the laundromat?"

"What about it? It was bought last year by Adrian's sister Brooke. She owns it. Her and one of her real estate partners. She knew I was living with Adrian, didn't bother me about the lease or anything. She's been remodeling the place ever since. But I haven't talked to her. So—so that means—"

Gus got the hint. "You don't have a home."

"Same old story, different day."

"Shawn."

"Gus. It's fine. Everything's fine. I have it all under control."

Gus wondered how. A car honked from behind, urging the tiny white hatchback to move forward. Gus, grunting, hit the gas pedal with a heavy toe. The four cylinders groaned.

"Zero to twenty in sixty seconds." Shawn hoped to add a peppering of levity. Things had gotten intense.

"Shawn."

So far, he wasn't doing so well with the levity thing. And, anyway, Gus tended to get glaze-eyed if someone talked about cars. "Come on, Gus. I'm trying to clear the air. In a car this small, if the two of us even get close to having an adult discussion, the air grows hot and still and stinky."

"Shawn."

"No, dude, aren't you even afraid to breathe in here after eating something a little heavy with garlic? It'd linger for weeks. You might make yourself pass out with halitosis." A pause. "At least you wouldn't have to worry about vampires vandalizing your car."

Gus turned left, then an immediate left again, then an urgent right that landed them in an abandoned parking lot behind a familiar building. Shawn had a point about the garlic, not about the vampires. Still, he didn't know what to say. He went to a fall-back phrase. "You do realize that I'm going to have to tell this to Juliet, right?"

Shawn made no motion to protest. Go ahead, he wanted to say. What good would it do? Out of the car, he met Gus again as the two neared the building. Looked like a hurricane was coming: plywood had been screwed in to cover the windows. The doors had been braced with boards. Gus didn't like its appearance, especially the police tape slithering at a brush of a breeze. His concerns made him halt.

"You want us to go in?"

"Well, I'm not psychic enough to delineate anything standing out here. It looks creepy, but it won't be. Let's go!" He took three steps ahead. "The door's unlocked."

"How do you know that?"

Shawn held his hand up to the side of his head and made an arrogant, all-knowing expression. Gus smacked his wrist away.

"Don't play your tricks with me."

"I read it on the report. The back door is still unlocked. I think Lassiter did that for me—us. For us. To investigate."

Shawn was not fast enough to cover that accidental slip of affection. "That was sweet of him."

"At least he gives me useful presents. Repayment for watering his plants and vacuuming that little rug he has at the back door."

"And stealing his laundry detergent."

"Chiefly just the fabric softener." Shawn looked at him: Gus looked at him: Shawn looked away. They looked at each other again. "Just to correct you."

Shawn didn't know if Lassiter had asked that the back door be left unlocked for the purpose of Shawn and Gus's impending, somewhat unplanned investigation. The report Shawn had seen had been looked at yesterday, when he went to the station the first time at Carlton's request. It'd been sitting on Lassie's desk for all the world, or just Shawn's snoopy eyeballs, to see.

"Wait," Shawn held Gus in place, staring at a spot in a patch of dust and grit. He knelt, as did Gus, and examined a fine footprint left there. "Dobson."

"As in Officer Dobson?"

"His first name's—"

"I know his first name." But Gus had momentarily forgotten it. "He was here?"

"He might've unlocked the door. He has tiny feet. And he has that walk where his heels barely touch the ground. Anyway," Shawn rocketed upward again, hand already at the utility handle of the heavy steel door, "let's go in! See what we can see!"

"I can't see much of anything," Gus said when they got inside.

"Yeah, me either."

It was darker than Shawn expected. They lit the backroom with flashlights off their phones. The moving beams of light did little to make them feel welcome, or fill the place with warmth. It was rather sinister—and, for Shawn—interesting. Gus commented on why.

"It looks like they just left everything, ran out one day, and never came back."

Desks were intact, with labels on the drawers: Scissors, tape, deposit slips, etc. Someone's forgotten hoodie, with the Englers name and emblem on the black sleeve, still hung on a peg by the door. A dustpan and broom, a mop and a bucket.

"Keep moving," urged Gus. "I don't think there's anything back here. This place doesn't look looted."

Gus was right. Shawn pulled at the door that separated the break room from the general store. Signs of disorder and chaos bloomed: wrappers, receipts, empty metal shelves sagging against worn and beaten brackets. And a smell: Gus found it in the next aisle over. Containers, plastic and glass, smashed across the aged linoleum: condiments, pickles, olives, salad dressing left to rot in the staleness, in the dark.

"How do you expect to find anything here? It's a mess."

Shawn thought it looked a little like his bedroom had back in the day, but made no comment. It wasn't always about what he was looking for. Very often, it was about finding the item, the tiny thing, that wasn't like the others. The thing that didn't belong. Those items didn't always stand out. They didn't always shine and gleam with flashlight beams coerced from iPhones. Shawn rarely went into a scene of a crime expecting to find it, that thing that didn't belong, but he always searched for it—as if it would find him, instead.

He was in the candy aisle when something tugged at the bottom of his shoe. A little slip, a little whoosh—paper against linoleum, pushed around easily by the coating of dust. He sensed it before he dropped his gaze and let his peepers make out the shape of it. Square. Faint of hue, perhaps white, pale pink, lavender. He lifted his toe, then his whole foot. A business card was revealed.

Gus rounded into the aisle, caught Shawn staring at a rectangle on the floor. A business card. "What'd you find?" He stepped closer and reached out to—

"Don't touch it!"

Gus's hand wrenched away from the tantalizing card. "Shawn, don't yell at me like that!"

"Sorry, it's just—they might have to go over this place again and I don't want to disturb anything."

Made sense, now that there was a body, and Gus obeyed. He observed Shawn's careful, cop-like movements. Shawn should've been one of them, Santa Barbara's finest. Rebellion, parental issues, his own issues, and boredom had ruined it for Shawn, really. It wasn't lack of talent or intelligence. It was boredom—Shawn's arch-nemesis: his own head. Gus had tried to help back then, get Shawn to go straight and at least try to do something law-enforcement related, but Shawn was lost by then, in his own labyrinth. And yet, now, Shawn was doing what he was he good at.

In the days prior to Adrian, and the complete shattering of all that a year's worth of work had created, Shawn would've simply memorized the text on the card. He took no chances, his mind in smithereens, scattered between Von's and Englers, Sunberry Lane and an apartment off Ventura Avenue. That was all demolished. And now he turned off the flashlight on his phone, brought up the camera, snapped an image of the business card. He put the flashlight back on. Timid cobwebs slipped downward, too close to his head. Dangerous nails and screws sticking out of broken shelves and cracked walls.

"Let's go."

Gus couldn't believe he hesitated. "Wait. That's it? You see some card to a massage parlor, and you want to go?"

"Yeah." Shawn said nothing else, heading to the back door, their exit, with or without Gus right behind him.

"Man," Gus uttered to his shadow, "to have that brain and just know what should be happening next!" He was as relieved as Shawn to be smothered in the cute caresses of daylight once again. "What'd you see in that card, Shawn? I really want to know."

"How badly?"

"Badly enough to ask you about it."

Shawn half-lifted a shoulder, conceding. That was a valid point. Gus didn't always ask Shawn what he saw, what he didn't see; what wasn't or was there in front of them. Back in the hatchie, Shawn took a sip of water from the thermos Gus always had in the cup holder. He passed it to Gus, who also took a sip. Shawn tried to press the dust out of his nose to no avail.

"Come on," urged Gus, "what'd you see?"

"Well, I saw that card."

"Provoking madness, you are."

"Give me a second. It takes time to explain my genius."

"Oh, please."

"It wasn't like anything else on that gross, disgusting—"

"Stop."

"—floor."

Gus had another nervous sip of water. He tried to flush away the creepy feel of that place. Its dead atmosphere. Its excessive population of dead insects. Its population of alive ones, too. He needed six showers, give or take a shower. Shawn went on.

"I thought it might've fallen from the community board, but it was too new. It hadn't been coated in the—"

"Skip the details. Just say stuff."

"Stuff like the other things had been, the wrappers and—" Shawn heard Gus gag, remembering the mold of olive jars with spilled insides, "—stuff. So if it looked newer, and hadn't been there that long, then—"

Gus gulped the last of the water. He glared at Shawn, knowing how to finish it. "So it was on the body—it dropped off the body when he was still alive and looting the place."

"I doubt he was looting the place, but otherwise I think you're right." He slugged Gus on the shoulder. "You can tell Jules how you got that all by yourself."

"You fed it to me, Cyrano. I suppose you want to go over to this massage parlor and check it out?"

Shawn did, but he was sympathetic to Gus's intense dislike for stuffy, stinky places that held the translucent carcasses of long-dead roaches and the cottony wonders of spider webs. "Um, wherever you feel like going. It's almost one. Maybe we should just go to Tom Blair's? Dude, we can order chips and guac."

Chips and guac would go a long way to heal the insecurities and vulnerabilities excited by the dungeon of Englers. Gus started the engine, thrown back to Shawn's tentative life, his predicaments. "What are you going to do?"

Shawn wanted to deflect, pretend he misheard, drag them back some other way to the mighty days of youth instead of this debilitating problem of adulthood. "I don't know yet," he answered, voice as lame as his choice of responses. "I need more time." He rubbed away a dull sensation of pressure in his forehead. "I'm reaching the point where 'forever' is starting to matter too much, particularly when it ends. It gets worse the older I get."

"Yeah," Gus managed to say. He rarely heard Shawn talk that profoundly about anything, let alone relationships. He was thoroughly stymied by what Shawn said next, said without the importance it was due, while he gazed out the window—seeing what Gus didn't see. They never could see the same thing.

"And the older I get, and the worse it gets, the longer and harder the fall. A never-ending fall. Until—you know—splat. And your guts are suddenly all over your past—in someone else's history. And you don't know if you'll get them back again. If you do—it won't be the same as it was, anyway. As the storybooks don't tell you, it never is the same."


	9. The Day Out

**IX. The Day Out**

Lassiter's hand flapped the menu away from Shawn's fingers. "No," was all he said.

Shawn stared at him. Lassiter's eyes were flamed with concern, something he hadn't seen since the last time Adrian worried about him, his work, his unconcern. He'd expected Lassie to be annoyed. Gus and Juliet, sitting in the booth seat across from them, kept it simple, watching instead of asking. It'd all happened so fast, anyway, that they couldn't react quickly. Shawn was reciting what he wished to order, and Lassiter instigated a protest.

Carlton had this under control. Sure, a little inside tremble told him he'd gone about this all wrong, that his reaction was purely involuntary and even he didn't understand it. But he had it under control. Straightening his suit coat, he looked at the server. "He'll have the chef salad, ranch on the side. And an iced tea."

Shawn's eyebrows tilted in the vast agony of watching this unfold. He wasn't sure. About anything. He'd find out in a couple of seconds, after handing his unused, unneeded menu to the server and giving a wan half-smile. "Sounds all right. Thanks." He hadn't been to Tom Blair's in months. His life in Ventura had taken over preferred dining routines. He'd barely dined out. They didn't talk about it, the saving-up they did, foregoing unnecessary expenses in order to have the money required to buy a house. That was 90% Adrian, though, and 5% his parents who were giving him a little money, and 5% Shawn, who'd never had a reason to save money. Now he had a thousand dollars, and no Adrian. No house. He glanced at Lassie—and wanted again to tell him about that house. What it was supposed to mean—but everything had fallen apart and Lassie had swooped in, an eagle latching to its prize. It was amazing how one three-day fight with Adrian, a fissure before their breakup, had changed his life.

"What?" Carlton said to the gawkers Juliet and Gus. "He was going to order a glass of milk with a cheeseburger. Who does that? No one. And he threw up last night."

Shawn blinked slowly, tiredly, now that Lassie had said it and it was out.

"What?" Gus breathed, incredulous.

"You threw up?" Juliet asked, as if Carlton's statement had been completely false. She needed to ask again to be sure. "Are you sick or pregnant or something?"

Shawn couldn't answer. In addition to ordering for him, Carlton was also speaking for him.

"I think he's just under a lot of stress."

Gus figured it out, then. He could see it and read it, the present inflicted by the actions of the past. Adrian—it seemed to speak through Gus's thoughts and into Shawn's undefended chest. It caught him there and twisted him into shadows. He couldn't think about it then, and chose instead to focus on Jules, to think about how Carlton had been last night. Kind, considerate, with a wash cloth at the ready when Shawn lifted his head from the strong scent of blue-watered toilet bowl and cold ceramic stink. As for Jules, she swung, suspended between uncertainty and the answer. When it finally lit upon her mind, she saw Shawn as fragile, a broken bird to be mended and molded, incubated and cuddled. He didn't want cuddles. The thought of cuddling with anyone, or having anyone hug him, curdled his stomach further. It pushed the memory of vomiting way too near.

She saw Carlton's kindness as he looked after Shawn that way. Shawn could do stupid things, especially when it came to food. Men could be dummies about their stomachs. While Adrian had been mentioned, Juliet had never known Shawn to react so badly to a breakup. As Gus hinted, there was probably more to the story, something they didn't know. Gus didn't throw out speculations, likely too afraid to dig too deep. Her gaze flicked to Lassiter. He would, though—Carlton would be the type to nudge around Shawn's personal life, his history, to find the answers he was looking for. But what did Carlton want to see, what did he want to find?

"How'd it go," Carlton started, glad that Shawn hadn't reprimanded for expropriating his lunch order, "over at Englers? Find anything?"

Shawn didn't talk. He sipped the ice tea, sans straw, when the server brought it over. Gus eventually spoke.

"Shawn found something. A business card." He explained about the card and how it'd been different from the older, grosser stuff that'd been lying around in Englers since the grocery store closed four months ago. Keeping Shawn's cover as a psychic was not always easy, especially as the four of them became closer. Gus nearly forgot himself sometimes, when speaking with Juliet at home, but he was able to recover fairly quickly. He suspected that she suspected, but it was all a fun sort of game at this point. "I wouldn't have noticed it at all. Shawn spotted it first—in the dark."

Carlton's eyebrows shot up. "A massage parlor, huh? Doesn't sound like the sort of place our vagrant would go."

"Dude," Shawn finally spoke to Lassie, "you ordered coffee with your lunch? Coffee?"

"I want to eat lightly," he said with honest defense. "We still have leftover Chinese at home."

Home. The word barreled through Shawn like a shotgun blast. He really needed to find somewhere else to live. Cohabiting with Lassie was nice and everything, and he'd been doing it longer than Lassie was aware of, but who was really starting to carry the joke? He wondered, for the first time since Saturday, if Mee Mee's was still available, if Brooke and her partners had leased it out already—broken ceiling, broken tile and poor electrical and a mouse living in the walls. Shawn didn't mind the mouse. And having the lights go off and on at random intervals was spectacularly entertaining when he was reading in bed. One time, early on in their relationship, when he and Adrian were staying there, Adrian had gone to sleep and Shawn had stayed up to read a book on his phone, and the lights had gone out. Shawn didn't notice for about an hour, still happily reading on his phone. When he got up to use the bathroom and the lights wouldn't come on, that's when he noticed everything electrical had gone the way of the caveman. It popped back on with a reset of the main breaker. Adrian didn't even wake up once.

That man could sleep through tornadoes and earthquakes and the coming of hell on good old terra firma. Since their breakup, Adrian had probably been sleeping fine. Without remorse. Without waking up in the middle of the night. He was probably not even sleeping alone anymore. Adrian did not like to be alone.

Shawn pressured himself to stop thinking about it.

He noticed that his friends were talking around him, or with him, at him, as if he'd been part of the conversation and not off in A-A-Adrian Land. The land that time forgot. The place he hoped that he was beginning to forget, too.

Juliet was talking about dinner with the bridesmaids, how the wedding planning was going. They'd had their venue for ages, but it was that part of the timeline that the bridal party had to order their dresses. Shawn's mind sort of faded out again when the food arrived. It was easy to get listless and disinterested in nuptials, even Gus's. He stared at leafy greens, not particularly hungry.

While Gus and Juliet talked colors and about sunrises—or maybe it was sunsets—Carlton titled closer to Shawn. "What about that massage place? Did you and Gus go over there?"

"Not yet." Cubed meat and three kinds of lettuce moved around on his plate. "If I get any of this in my teeth, you'll tell me, right?" Harkening back to their earlier conversation about lettuce's predilection to wind up glued to a person's dental enamel.

"Yeah," Lassiter replied, "I'll tell you. But you're going over there, right?"

Shawn had already noticed how easily he'd found the business card, and now how Lassiter knew how easily he'd found the business card. He didn't care so much about Jules. He had a feeling she'd been onto him for a while now, anyway. And who knew what Gus told her. Probably enough to keep his secret as secret as ever it was. But Lassiter? Shawn knew he still had Lassie on the ropes. Oh, sure, Lassiter wasn't a hundred percent convinced or anything. He never had been. He never would be. It was part of the strategy, the ploy, the agony. He was just convinced enough to doubt it all, to look for problems and issues. Although, strangely enough, they'd become too close for Shawn's shenanigans to be so intensely scrutinized.

"No," Shawn said to toss more doubts to Lassie, "no, not—not today, I don't think. They're busy today, and I would rather go there when I can get their full attention. No one wants a half-assed massage. It's so unsatisfying."

He'd said it while Carlton took a sip of coffee. A sputter followed. Pale brown liquid dripped from Carlton's thumb. Shawn absentmindedly handed him another napkin. It was used to wipe away the dribbles from thumb, table, and Lassiter's chin. He was less concerned about the mess than the embarrassment, than the fact that Shawn was just moving lettuce and cubed meats around like he was digging for a pearl.

When lunch was over, Shawn was on his way back to the station with Gus. There were some things, Shawn claimed, that he wanted to look over. Resources tended to be better at the police station. His phone vibrated, a text from Lassiter.

"You could've ordered a slice of chocolate cake or their bread pudding instead of a salad. You didn't eat much."

Shawn sighed—he hated this part, the deep and disproportionate concern of his friends. The last time Gus had gone through a mighty breakup, Shawn hadn't been nearly so vigilant or kind. Maybe this was just the way Lassiter showed he cared.

"I'm not very hungry," Shawn texted back. He sent it, then spoke aloud to Gus. "How slow is it at the station these days? Lassiter's been back from lunch two minutes and he's already texting me."

"Maybe he misses you." Gus chuckled warmly at his own joke. He chuckled again, louder, smacked Shawn somewhere near his shoulder. He gave a point before the light changed from red to green. "Hey, Lassiter's your new boyfriend."

Shawn turned his head away, flattened his mouth. "Too soon, man, too soon!"

Gus supposed so. Not a lot could change for Shawn between Saturday, when the breakup happened, and Thursday afternoon. Shawn had admitted that he was feeling better, that these false flirtations helped. Not enough, though. Shawn still wasn't talking about it. His phone vibrated, another text from Lassie.

"Starvation and emaciation are not the keys to healing a busted heart."

Shawn typed back, "What is, then? I didn't know you were an expert."

The mini-wagon was pulling into the parking lot when Shawn got a response.

"Everything that's bad, everything you never allow yourself to do. Indulgences. Revenge."

A second text concluded Lassiter's thoughts on the subject.

"And time. Mostly… just time."

A third message caused Shawn to roll his eyes as he and Gus headed up the staircase. "I'm about ready to tell him that I'll be at his desk in six seconds." But when he took out his phone, the message wasn't from Lassiter.

It was from Brooke.

Adrian's sister.

Shawn stopped walking, staring at the screen. Brooke's name in the pale gray box sent his feelings swirling, his heart thumping so deep inside of him that he was fairly sure he could feel it in his toes. He could feel it in his stomach, which tightened and twisted. He swallowed, burped, swallowed again. Gus had stopped with him, asked questions that echoed funnily, far, far off in the distance where such things as the present didn't matter.

Gus shook Shawn at the shoulder. He had a guess. "Did Adrian text you?"

Shawn finally came to. He had to correct it, because there was no way he was going to let Gus believe that it was possible. "No—no—Brooke did. His sister."

The one that owned Mee Mee's, Gus wanted to add. Shawn knew that. Shawn knew it could or couldn't be related to Adrian. "It's probably about your apartment."

Shawn's eyes gave away too much of his confusion. He dropped the phone into the pocket, willing himself to forget that she'd texted him, that a text of such importance, or such insignificance, waited on his phone. What could she be texting him about? He swam a hand over his hair—maybe today would be the day he got a haircut but probably not—and tried to fight off the urge to look at the message right away. If it was about the apartment, he didn't want to appear disappointed that it wasn't about Adrian. If it was about Adrian, he didn't want the shock and hurt to be visible to everyone in the SBPD. By then, though, he was certain that the majority of his private sufferings had made the rounds. Officers looked at him funny.

"Hey, Shawn," said one of them as he passed.

That Dobson was a sneaky character—all happiness and friendliness. Well, he couldn't fool Shawn.

Except that Shawn was saying this to comfort himself with internalized humor. It was a coping mechanism. Dobson was the nicest person Shawn had ever met, like he should be running a bar or a bakery, like the milkman of olden days.

Out of habit, he stuck his finger beneath the fat fringe of Hercules. The soil still felt about right. Lassiter's desk was uncharacteristically cluttered. A few pencils were out of place. Lassiter was not even interested in replacing them. His eyes were then fixed on a report that'd come through email. Shawn had broken into—well, more like borrowed—Lassiter's email account and found it incredibly boring. It was filled with all the "paperwork" that cops had to do, that Shawn vehemently did not like about being a cop, and was glad he had missed all of that. When he felt like it, he went to the Psych office and worked on his own stack of paperwork. The important stuff he did. The less important stuff he waited for Gus to do, for his mom to do if she came to town, and for Gus to badger him into it until they had to spend a Saturday afternoon stuck inside and up to their elbows in margins and signatures. But that'd been over the last eleven months. When he had Adrian, and Saturdays meant lying in bed until noon, yachting in the afternoons, meeting with friends (cousins) in the evening for sports or drinks or dinners at someone's house, and returning home in time to watch a movie, lie on the couch and dream and doze and slumberous kisses that formed the peak of their arousal—

"—listening, Shawn?"

Shawn's head snapped up. His heart continued to beat harder and faster. Lassie had been talking to him. He hadn't heard a word. Out the corner of his eye, Juliet's desk, Gus plastered to the side of it.

"Sorry," he said with full apologetic tone, "I wasn't listening. I was thinking about something." He thought about saying that he'd had a vision, but that didn't fit right. Carlton knew too much. His stare slanted downward—an uncommonly messy desk, Carlton's hand resting gently, gleaming from a recent manicure. He wondered if that was one of Carlton's indulgences. If yes, what were his revenges? "About Adrian. What about this report?"

Carlton didn't know if he should repeat it. Shawn might not be in the mood to find it so diverting. "I sent Dobson over to my place yesterday on an assignment."

"Your place?"

"Yeah. To see if he could spot you hanging around, or signs of you. This was before you admitted to the whole gaslighting thing."

"I wasn't gas—" Shawn huffed the words away. He recalled their joking around, their toying around, from yesterday. It was fair to use the word, since he'd used it in a facetious sense. It'd be unfair to think that Shawn had tried to manipulate and hurt Lassiter's psyche. As if anything could do that; only Carlton himself had that power. He reset his mind. This was obviously not why Carlton had brought it up. "What about it?"

"It's just funny," he gave a few chortles and a smile so genuine it crinkled up the corners of his eyes, "I'm going to forward it to you. You'll enjoy it."

If he looked at his phone, he'd see the message from Brooke on his lock screen. A shiver of fear and apprehension lassoed his guts. The really deep guts. The ones that wouldn't let him forget like his mind was starting to. Not forgetting, no, but beginning to release. The ropes were not as tight as scratchy as they'd been.

"I'll check it later," Shawn told Lassiter, and he was saved by Lassiter's desk phone spazzing into a ring.

It'd been so long since his phone rang that Lassiter stared at it for a second. Disbelief rose and fell. He heard Shawn say something about being around later—not knowing what that meant—before lifting the receiver from the cradle. "Detective Lassiter." He didn't catch much of what was being said. His eyes were gone and his mind elsewhere, on Shawn vanishing into shadows that deepened down the back hall.

Shawn sat down in a chair in the video conference room. No one hung around his quiet little tree house—so named, in his mind, because he had to name everything, because he liked everything to have a name. Descriptors helped him catalog his life, helped the inner narration go on and on, helped him remember whatever it was he needed to remember. The room was usually dark, the motion-sensor switch near the door had stopped working years ago, thanks to a little April Fool's tweaking from Shawn. The SBPD was fun to terrorize in minimal, junior-high ways. Their priorities were so straight and tight that he knew what they would fix and what they wouldn't. Turning on a switch manually seemed to be so commonplace to anyone, despite the increased prevalence of automatic switches, that no one thought to ask the maintenance team to fix it. He preferred entering a dark room when he was fatigued enough—physically, mentally, or even, dare he think it, spiritually.

But as he sat in the chair and swerved on his bottom to face the low-lying wooden-topped table properly, he had his phone in hand. His chin propped on his other clammy palm. As soon as the screen glowed at his prompt, he was on a roller coaster. His stomach darted, dropped, went sideways and back again. A lump of pain and fear widened his throat like a broken road.

If he didn't look, then he'd be in agony wondering what Brooke wanted. Wouldn't he? It was better just to know and get it over with.

He brought up the text message, ignoring his heartbeat.

In what seemed like less than a second, but really about three seconds, he put the phone down and stared into space. Thinking—remembering—sensing.

Gus had been right, after all. It was about the apartment. Mostly. But Adrian's name had been included. In a way. Shawn couldn't think of a reply. It required him to be less raw and more thoughtful. Neither of which he was. Every ounce of viscera trembled, and his breath still quivered, his heart was still running its usual marathon whenever something with Adrian came too close to him.

He jumped—and he never jumped—when the door flew open.

"Shawn?" Gus caught sight of Shawn recovering from a second's fright. Shawn never jumped. His nerves were steel. He anticipated what others couldn't. Gus shut the door quietly at his back. "Sorry. Look, Lassiter and Juliet are going out on a case."

Shawn's eyebrow went up, but Gus waved a hand to dismiss the idea.

"We're not invited. They're going just to investigate a theft. You want a ride someplace?"

He looked around the tree house, its smoky, soft smell of electronics, its darkened panes along a north-facing wall of windows that reminded him of elementary school, and the big beams of pine that lined the ceiling. It made the room more unique than the other conference room, the boring one. Still, while he liked it and thought it might be nice to nap there, he gave the table a thwack with his hand then jetted to his feet.

"To the massage parlor, please, my good man Godfrey."

"Stop, I'm hardly William Powell."

"And I'm hardly Carole Lombard."

"Hope not. She died in that plane crash and all."

"That gives me the One-eyed Willies and all the Wonkas, Gus."

"Yeah, me too. Where is the massage parlor, anyway?"

"Over by the middle school."

"Our middle school? The one we went to?"

"One and the same."

"That figures."

"Yeah, but if you get your car into third, if it has a third gear, you can shut your eyes as we're driving by. What time is it?"

Gus looked at his watch. "Almost three."

"Ugh. Well, it's summer, the kids aren't school so traffic shouldn't be an issue."

"It's May, Shawn. The kids are in school."

"Wha—? Really? No. Come on. We were well out of school by the time May came around." He was kidding, of course, playing off of Gus's annoyance. It was what they did—what Shawn did with a lot of people, except a few. His brain was prodded by a forefinger—Adrian, Brooke, the whole family that he was always kind to because they were always kind to him. His heart got prodded with a poisoned arrow. He rubbed his chest as if the pain were real, manifesting in the physical plane and not the emotional.

Gus had honed in so intensely on the middle school that he forgot that Shawn's destination was down the street. He huffed and rolled the mini wagon around, trying to find a parking spot amid the students flocking to buses and guardians waiting in cars. "Man, never going to find a place—This is a nightmare—Would you look at—!" The mini wagon's mini horn honked at a Lexus sedan that swerved into a spot before Gus could claim it.

Shawn couldn't help but smile and snicker. It was getting ridiculous. When should he put Gus out of his misery with a gentle reminder? Probably now, just as Gus yanked the car towards a seemingly vacant spot, only to brake with fantastic suddenness at the appearance of a motorcycle. Gus grumbled about motorcycles being no better than broomsticks, and Shawn decided it was time.

"Massage parlor, Gus."

"What?"

"We're going to the massage parlor, not the school. Granted, it's a nice school, it's still very pretty, but we're not going inside for any reason whatsoever."

Gus's face twitched in self-disgust as he realized his error. "You let me wander around this parking lot for five minutes and you didn't say anything?"

"It was entertaining! I was entertained! Were you not entertained?"

"No, I wasn't! That twelve-year-old girl on the bicycle was downright demonic!"

"What gave that away, the pigtails or the fierce, red arachnid kind of eyes?"

"Don't pretend you didn't see it."

"The massage parlor, our actual destination, is just around the corner."

Gus maneuvered his car from one end of the parking lot to the other, veering around middle-grade kids, some who took their time, some who rushed with less rustiness. While paused to allow a sixth-grader to cross, in baggy jeans and a superhero t-shirt, his backpack black and bogged down with study materials, Gus gave a shake of his head.

"He looks so tiny. Look at that! Bag's almost as big as he is. Hard to believe we were ever that little."

The kid passed, Gus pushed the pedal and sent them out of the parking lot. Finally to the freedom of a red light.

Shawn resettled in the seat. He had two minutes, give or take, and he wasn't going to get out of the car without trying to offend or get a rise out of Gus. "Do you and Jules ever talk about making sweet little multiracial bundles of angelic goodness yourselves?"

"What?" Gus was stunned to be asked. Shawn never asked stuff like that. Where had it come from? Well, the kids in the middle school parking lot, obviously, but there was something deeply disturbed about Shawn lately. Someone had roughened the inner silt of Shawn Spencer. It was just as well, Gus thought, that he hadn't spent a whole lot of time with Adrian. Since, as of that moment, he hadn't wanted to pin Adrian Harris-Collins to a dusty collection of moths and butterflies. Or ask Juliet to throw him into an interrogation room. Now Gus wanted to do something, wanted to make it all justified: Adrian's arrogance, Shawn's perturbation. He wanted to roughen Adrian's cool inner silt. But still—still—still—it was cute of Shawn to ask. He took a softer approach to answering the inquiry. "We don't talk about it. We haven't really. Not yet. Is this the place? For Keeps Massage. Odd name. That's kind of suggestive."

Shawn was surprised that his question about creating little people-angels in the form of screaming and pooping children hadn't affected Gus so wildly. Then again, the two of them were going through a lot. At opposite ends of the relationship spectrum. "This is it. You can drop me off."

"As if I would," added Gus, hissing at the end. He'd known Shawn most of their lives, and he knew Shawn didn't have his wits about him on a good day. And it hadn't been a good day since Saturday. No doubt, as always, Shawn, if he got into trouble, would twist through the air, tumble, stumble, and find the flat bottoms of his feet again. And during the whole process, the twisting and tumbling, he wouldn't twist an ankle, break anything, or stir up dust. It was doubtful that he'd even hurt anyone else's feelings.

Shawn didn't argue about Gus's company. A tag-team meant quicker, swifter action, and it was what they'd grown good at through the years at Psych. He was scouring their past histories together to find the right sort of scheme that might give them the information they needed, while also being hilarious and innocuous. The less harmful the better. He didn't really feel like breaking into anyone's office, or even a filing cabinet. This would be strictly reconnaissance.

He briefly wondered why reconnaissance was such a long word. Like abbreviation. But its etymology was obviously French, and they were known, in fact were often ridiculed, about their love of extra letters. Extra E's and L's to the apex of nonsensical, almost Seussian humor. If Americans had gotten hold of the word reconnaissance back in the beginning of time, it would've been spelled rekonayzuns. Had they known about it, Professor James Murray would've rolled in his grave, and mad Dr. Minor would've just become even more mad as a specter, as an asylum memory.

He never talked to Adrian about ridiculous etymologies or word symbolism. They talked of cabbages and kings, even of sealing wax and Jabberwockies, but not of words. Adrian wrote very clinically. Very clean and tidy. Shawn, when he wrote, wrote of the time. His words and phrases were part of the dialogue of youth. "You have a talent," Adrian had said, after perusing one of Shawn's astrological articles. He called them bullshit, because they were. They were colored so deeply with crap that Adrian had had no choice but to see right through the colorful phrase-turning, the roiling, crude humor.

Shawn happily shredded the thought, then brought it back again. There was no purpose to shredding something that had brought him a moment's happiness. He'd been smarter than Adrian in that moment if in no other. Especially the last moment they shared. Shawn became furious and humiliated all over again. Thankfully, he grasped the cold metal door handle and yanked it towards him. The force was stronger than intended. His strength was stronger than he knew. Gus had to sidle his steps to keep from getting impaled. Shawn apologized. It was easy to forgive. By the nearly formless wrinkle between Shawn's eyebrows, Gus knew when Shawn's thoughts wrestled with themselves. Would he have to take over at the reception desk, or would Shawn fly into his role like he always did?

No need. Shawn flew. Like he always did. Without missing a beat or a breath, he pulled his hands across his heart chakra and bowed gently.

"Namaste."

"Namaste," the man behind the counter echoed, returned the same bow.

Gus completed a half-hearted, limited edition of the same courtesy. He didn't know what the gesture meant but repeated it, a parrot in Shawn's luminous shadow. He did not say the word. Often, it was better to let Shawn do the talking for the two of them. And, as usual, Shawn had aliases ready for them. Gus supposed Shawn prepped those aliases ahead of time, whipped them out when occasion required. Shawn thought of them at night when he couldn't sleep. He wrote them down at night when he couldn't sleep and silly things like humorous aliases floated to him on the tails of stars and through the silent chuckling of the moon.

"I'm Frederic de Dauphin, and this is my associate Branch Von Hazel. We've come to inquire about the reiki workshop this upcoming weekend."

Gus tried not to titter. How did Shawn know there was a reiki workshop that weekend? Shawn knew everything, like an omnipotent god.

"Yes, of course," the lad behind the counter said. He brought out a thrice-folded piece of paper, with the picture of a pink lotus blossom on the front and a proclamation about the date and time of the workshop in swirly light blue font. "It's for Okuden-level reiki practitioners, but we would also welcome apprentice masters, too."

Shawn read the front of the pamphlet, leafed through the separated accordion for words that he needed. He scanned the desk and saw a few things, too, things that he didn't think were important. "This is very interesting, thank you. We'll be in attendance if our spirit guides permit."

The man looked a little put-off by the remark, not sure if they were serious, not willing to risk that they weren't. "Yes, well, naturally. Are you both Okuden?"

"I'm Shinpiden," Shawn said, then tossed a thumb at Branch Von Hazel, "and he's my young padawan learner."

Gus did the namaste pose and bow again.

"He's taken up the art of muteness," Shawn said for clarification. "A spiritual cleanse."

"Ah, I see," the man said, eyeing Branch Von Hazel with renewed, yet still limited, interest. "That is very admirable. So that's why you're both interested in attending the workshop. You can speak for him."

This was far from Shawn's intent, as far as this storyline went, but he was willing to play along. After all, they wouldn't really be at the workshop, and Gus was nowhere near a master's apprentice in a spiritual healing, magic hands kind of art. "Yes," he said after a moment in his pure American accent that he got from watching reruns of _What's My Line?_ on You Tube, "yes, I will be able to translate for him, and he, in turn, will tell me how he does the silence thing." He chuckled warmly, slightly fakely. "I can't do it! Can't stop talking most of the time!"

The man smirked. "That's all right. Talk all you like. Well, I'm Will," he paused, as if considering his first name bland as ice against granite when he thought again of names like Branch Von Hazel and Frederic de Dauphin. Obviously, they were not real names. "And I'll be at the workshop this weekend. If you have any questions before hand, uh, Mr. de Dauphin, you can call me here."

"He was hitting on you," Gus said as soon as the door closed behind him, "Mr. de Dauphin!"

"He was not," Shawn interposed, joking because he knew that Will had been chatting him up. It was sort of cute. Too soon. Way too soon. But cute anyway. Maybe heartache made him look good. Maybe tears conditioned his hair, or sobbing tightened his abs. Who knew? There were likely a few million webpages that told him all the health benefits of a breakup. On the darker side of things, a few million other websites would tell him all the reasons that a breakup was detrimental. "But I should be able to get information from that place so we don't have to go to the workshop this weekend. I know you're busy."

"I'd like to go."

"You would?"

"It would be interesting."

"Would it?"

"I'll think about it. We should plan to go, though."

"Should we?"

"Let's just plan to attend, if nothing else."

"Well, do you have the money for it, because I really, really don't."

"I'll look into it."

"If you want to. I'll go. If you want."

Gus had wedding things to do. Shawn was not helping plan the wedding, and stag night was still out of his grasp, too. Frankly, when it came to weddings, Shawn appreciated the darkness, the mystery. He rubbed a palm into an aching, tired eye, thinking about weddings. His guts twisted again, mere nooses of blood and organs that strangled the amorphous past.

"Now what?" Gus wanted to know when they got back in the car. He'd gotten a phone call and a voicemail, and Shawn had stayed silent, staring out the window, not even looking at his phone, so he could listen to the message a coworker had left behind. Shawn looked like water, sort of hazy and weak, pliable and barely upright. And oddly bloated. That might've been Gus's imagination. "I need to pick up Justine's route. Her daughter is sick and has to be picked up at school."

"Unless we're talking tennis or the band Oceanlab, I don't know who Justine is. What are you talking about?"

Gus didn't bother to explain. "I have to go back to work, that's what I'm saying. What do you want to do? Find out more about the body? It's sort of more your thing than mine. Lassiter gave it to you, after all."

"It was the Chief, actually, and Lassie had nothing to do with it."

Gus doubted that was entirely true. At a red light, he glanced beyond Shawn to the massage clinic. "How are you going to find out anything if you don't go to that workshop?"

"I have my methods."

"Puh!"

Provoked by the doubt, Shawn whipped out a fake French accent to go with his borrowed name. "I am Frederic de Dauphin, and do not, puny human, little Branch von Hazel, do not doubt my methods!"

"Fine," Gus threw the car into Reverse to squeeze out of the parallel parking spot. He flung it into Drive again before speaking. "But you don't know anything about reiki. No more than I do."

"That's not true," Shawn admitted. "I'm a Level 2 reiki," he flung a hand around because he couldn't think of the right word, "thing."

"Practitioner?"

"Yeah, that'd work. Practitioner. Why didn't I think of that?"

"When did this happen? You never told me you could do reiki. A lot of the nurses on my routes do it. Is that a doing thing, or is it a knowing thing?"

"Doing—always doing! I don't know when that happened. Ten years ago? Wait. What year is it again?"

"Shawn, seriously. Are you kidding around?"

"I am not." Shawn did not balk or smirk or even blink. "I'm an Okuden reiki practitioner. I'm not even kidding. I have the certificate and that genealogy thing somewhere."

Gus supposed he'd have to believe Shawn—this time. Just for an hour or two, anyway. "Well, give yourself some reiki and heal your broken heart."

"Broken hearts don't work that way. I don't really know how they work, but I'm thinking I could probably write a book on the subject."

"No doubt. And, unless you come up with a better option, Shawn, I'm taking you back to Lassiter's."

"Just out of curiosity, why Lassiter's? We live in Santa Barbara. There are probably thousands of more appealing places I could go than Lassiter's house." He didn't want to think about the lemon tree in the backyard. The claw-foot tub that soaked away his cares and concerns. The comfortable bed in the guest room that'd welcomed him, even during those nights that he hadn't Lassiter's blessing, or knowledge, to be under the same roof. It was much different now that Carlton knew, and Shawn didn't have to worry about getting shot in the middle of the night, mistaken for an intruder. Or both. Very likely both.

Gus worked the car forward, its four cylinders struggling with a sudden but short hill. "Because all your stuff is there."

Shawn had no choice. He swung a hand at Gus's riposte. "Gloriously said, and fairly true. My stuff is there, and I must have my stuff."

Gus bit his tongue, exercising his right to say nothing further. He knew Shawn had spent most of his life living without stuff. His stuff was minimal. While in Mazatlan, he was fairly sure Shawn had spent that whole time living out of one backpack and wearing the same cargo shorts and tropical blue button-up shirt. Until he started borrowing his boyfriend's clothes. Although Shawn and Adrian had been together a long time, a long time by Shawn's standards, Gus hadn't known him to borrow any of Adrian's clothes. If he started wearing anything from Lassiter's wardrobe, then he would worry.

But he was still a smidgen worried. When he parked the car in the driveway, and Shawn made the motions to depart the vehicle, Gus asked, "You going to be okay?"

"Sure," Shawn said, offering no commitment.

Gus made a mental note to text Lassiter and suggest that he rush through that theft investigation and get home to Shawn ASAP. He was a little wary of leaving Shawn alone. It seemed an unnatural state for Shawn. Perhaps he underestimated Shawn's coping abilities—or Shawn's longing to do yoga and reiki and take a bath. Maybe in that order—maybe not. He was glad Shawn was already in the house by the time he got to the end of the driveway. He couldn't have taken over Justine's route if Shawn had been standing there, alone, forlorn and lackadaisical, as if he didn't know what to do with himself with only Adrian's waning shadow around.

Shawn stared into the living room. The smell of the place was beginning to seem like home to him, and something inside of him squirmed and rebelled. He didn't want to get attached to this place. But he didn't know what to do with himself, either, now that he was alone and Gus had gone. He had one immediate option.

He pulled out his phone, read Brooke's text message again, and sent off the reply that'd been composing itself at the edges of his mind for the last couple of hours.

And then he grabbed a book, stretched out on the couch, and waited for her reply. Adrian's name, he remembered, hadn't been typed by him, not even to Adrian's sister.

_I'm sorry about what happened. It's not what I would've wanted for you two. I just found out. Don't give up on him yet. But I'm hoping you can—_

He opened to a random page of some book of Russian poetry that'd helped him get sleepy when he pulled it from the shelf in the guest room. Mayakovsky surfaced in front of him, bold and oblique, a storm of locution.

_You came—  
__determined,  
__because I was large,  
__because I was roaring… _

Shawn dropped the book from his eyes. In his imagination, he revisited those times when the poet's phrase bled from the page and dropped its stubborn inky blood upon his life.


	10. Pretend that It is the End

**X. Pretend That It Is The End**

It'd felt like weeks since Carlton sat with O'Hara in the police cruiser on their way to an investigation. It wasn't weeks, only fallow and forgettable days. O'Hara talked in fits and starts as they wound their way from the field that encircled the theft to Lassiter's gut prompting him to drive to Samarkand. Juliet, talking about their coworkers and compeers, about Dobson and Dobson's boyfriend Mike, finally concluded that their destination was the grocery that the body had looted. The body before it was a body, of course. Not after. At least, she hoped not after. That'd be more weirdness and excitement than what she was looking for.

"Weren't Shawn and Gus here this morning?" she asked, looking at the old, sad building on the corner. She would've preferred seeing it back in its Prohibition days, when it was a hangout spot for all the cool cats in town, and somewhere, buried behind a false brick wall, was the real bar. Illegal liquor and that furious, curious poniard in American history had always been of interest to her. Not so much when she lived in the South. There, they talked about different things, and secrets were older, buried deeper. But in California, a younger place, secrets didn't seem so ancient. She could almost reach out and feel them in her hands. She turned sharply to Lassiter when he answered.

"I believe they were here earlier, yes."

Nonetheless, he was determined to see it for himself. He hadn't been inside, not even during the looting, which a couple of patrol officers and a Sergeant took care of. (It was their division: it was their job.) He just wanted to see for himself where the body had come from. Juliet, however, had found another secret, right in front of her, worth digging into.

"He's getting to you, isn't he?"

Lassiter could feel his neck get hot. The center spark of his soul spun like a Catherine Wheel. "I don't know what you're—wait—who?"

"Shawn," she said with the sort of grin that stung and chided, that teased and meant to tease as much as it could. She waited, eyes on her partner and, she had to think it, her mentor, and waited to get the reward of his face collecting a hint of pink beneath the stubble on his jaw and the sunshine on his cheeks. "He's getting to you. Don't worry. It happens. It's pretty useless to resist, you know. He'll reel you in one way or another."

Lassiter snapped, "I'm not a fish! I won't be reeled! And if he's so great, why are you marrying Gus and not Shawn?"

She laughed. Carlton rarely called Gus by his abbreviated name, and just the emotional outflow of the question brought her comfort and warmth. She'd been trying to get Shawn and Carlton together for years. Well, months, maybe; years was an exaggeration. She didn't keep track of dates that way. Her and Gus's efforts were only snippets of their history, and Shawn and Carlton's relationship was what prompted Juliet and Gus to have clandestine conversations and inside jokes, and those random acts of friendship that led to a dinner that became a spontaneous date. She couldn't tell Carlton that it was thanks to him that she'd started talking to Gus so much. Not yet, but maybe one day in August at a starlit reception, and her in a pale ivory dress and Gus wearing— "Are you kidding? Shawn would drive me crazy! He's crazy quilts and I'm—I'm velvet duvets."

Carlton pulled a face. O'Hara always had these brain-tickling analogies. She made her final conclusion.

"Anyway, Gus avers that Shawn has more sexual tension with random toasters than he does with people."

That actually forced a smirk out of Carlton. Memories of Shawn's antics surfaced. Nothing yet with a toaster, but that was just a matter of time. "After seeing how he behaves with his Pop Tarts, I believe that."

"If you need more reasons than the toaster thing, I suggest you ask Gus. Or Shawn. Shawn would know why people don't want to be with him. Except, well, don't ask him that now, obviously."

Carlton didn't know, and he wasn't about to break open that egg with Gus, let alone Shawn. He quietly analyzed it himself. "He's a little—" Unwinding that beginning wasn't something he could commit to judiciously. "Bad with money." It was a cheap and easy place to start.

It only brought Juliet another chuckle, warmer and fuller as they made it to the back door. The flagging tape twitched with the sea-mint breeze, a reminder of what had gone on inside, and that a man had died after being in there. It calmed to know Woody had found no sign of infection or physical ailments in his autopsy report. The body might've expired from natural causes, and not some unsafe amount of mold lurking inside the old speakeasy. Her distractions were momentary, and she was able to turn them back to Shawn.

"He's bad with money, yeah, but I think he'd shape up if it was with the right person. We don't really know what went on with him and Adrian."

Carlton had forgotten that part, just for a second. He'd forgotten that someone named Adrian Harris-Collins existed, that he and Shawn had been together about a year. What had happened during that year? What had really happened Saturday to split them up? Money? It had to be more than money. "Well, if it was money that broke them up, they wouldn't be the first couple to crumble under financial stress. It's pretty common. We allow money too much power sometimes."

"They were going to buy a house," O'Hara declared, staring directly at him. It was news. Brand new. It was a fact Carlton hadn't heard before.

Carlton went back to work, after a second's pause of surprise, moving the ends of tape to stick above their heads. When they left, he'd remember to put it back in place or stick up new strands. He'd be lucky if he remembered what they came for, all this influx of information that was more about Shawn than the body Shawn had found. Carlton gave O'Hara a conceited smirk. She had hoped for more of a reaction, and he'd managed to give her very little.

"What else did Gus tell you?"

"That's about all."

The eeriness of the old speakeasy, along with the ghosts of all its previous incarnations, and its current facade as a mummified convenient store, soon wore away her intention to dissemble Shawn for Carlton's sake. The space was dusty, rank, and smelled like a place long ago abandoned.

"Wonderful," she said, maintaining her cheerfulness. What was there to be sad about, really? She was in an interesting place right then, sort of creepy and astounding; she was getting married soon to a fabulous man; Carlton and Shawn were a whole lot closer than they were a month ago. If she didn't have them together by the time she and Gus walked down the aisle, she'd be surprised. Not that it was all her own doing, of course. A little prodding couldn't hurt. And maybe some scheming.

Definitely some scheming. If she and Gus could do anything together, it was planning a good scheme and executing it to the amusement and happiness of their friends.

Carlton rubbed his palms together, trying to be as thrilled at the prospect of shifting through debris, dust and muck as his partner seemed to be. "Let's get started, O'Hara!"

She was still weaving plans in the back of her head. "My thoughts exactly."

**-x-**

Shawn felt as though he'd barely started the Russian anthology of poetry before his eyelids dropped, he was asleep—and he was waking up with a soft rap in the distance.

A rapping on his chamber door. What were the chances it'd be a raven—or Edgar Allen Poe?

With sense and spirit returned, he knew where he was: the not-made-for-napping couch in Lassie's living room—the house on Sunberry Lane that might've been his and Adrian's—and at the back door, the only door that anyone with any claim of friendship to the homeowner ever used—at the back door was a rap, rap, rap. Metallic infused, as if completed, consciously, by a set of keys very earnestly demanding that the summons be answered.

Shawn obliged the disembodied keys, as he imagined them: floating in the air, rapping madly, a creature crossed from the final draft of _Alice in Wonderland_. Free from the confines of a chenille throw, a gift to Lassiter from Juliet, and off the couch, Shawn darted through the empty dining room, to the mudroom, to the back door. Behind the masking glass, warbled and ancient, he found a silhouette. Brunette and short. He tugged and tugged at the door, wondering and wondering, not just about the door and its stubbornness, but about her. What had she come for? What did she want?

"The door sticks," Shawn proclaimed as soon as he and Victoria could look at one another. He hadn't seen her in ages, recognizing her by the shape of her eyes and the happiness of freedom that lit her from within.

Victoria gave him a smile, sidling inside to the mudroom. She looked around, spun into it, and extended a hand. "Nice to see you again, Shawn."

'Thanks," he shook what was offered, let it go gently, "you too. You're looking very tan and very well."

"And you look as though I just woke you up." She turned, resisting any comment from Shawn that might've been the truth or a commentary that built up a lie. She knew about him a little. Enough. She read the papers and kept up with local news. Shawn was usually there, lingering in a headline, between paragraphs that detailed the solving of a crime. Carlton was espied this way, too, but he was less delicate and more flashy in his spontaneous media appearances. Shawn was a ripple in the background. He surfaced, like tales of mermaids and bigfoot, when it was necessary to reward the public with a reminder of his existence.

She walked through the dining room. Carlton hadn't done anything with it yet. It was strewn with the remainders of moving: a couple of smaller boxes, an old wooden Shaker chair left from his childhood, and some black and white prints of landscapes, of battlefields from the Civil War, leaning against a wall and waiting to be within eyesight again. She thought they might be waiting a while. Carlton didn't always see things when he should, or how he should.

Her fingertip rubbed purposefully against the armrest of her beige armchair. "This is mine," she said to Shawn, smiling a little. "I'd still like it back some day."

Shawn wanted to tell her that it wouldn't be an issue. Lassie never sat in it. "At this moment, it's usually a glorified afghan and blanket rack, as you can see."

"I can see why he keeps fighting me on it," Victoria added, now handling an apricot chenille throw that Carlton never would've bought, it having too much color for his tastes. "Where would he put his blankets and afghans if he didn't have this chair sitting in the corner?"

Shawn couldn't ask her about the feud over the chair. It wasn't a pleasant discussion to have with Lassiter's ex. Her eyes had bounced from the chair to the low, black and ugly coffee table. Upon it, Shawn's hastily discarded book of Russian poetry. Victoria mistook it as being Carlton's. It was, of course. It was from his college days. But Shawn didn't say that he'd been the one reading it. He'd rather let Victoria believe what she wished.

Finished with the inspection, she turned her gaze back to Shawn. There was no need to inspect him. "I didn't know how Carlton would be able to afford a house on his salary. You're his roommate now? Helping out with the bills?"

"Bills? No," he shifted his hair, and the word HAIRCUT blazoned through his mind, "no, I don't live here. Just sort of," he paused, unsure what to say, "staying here."

"But this is not where you live."

"This is not where I live. Occasionally I might exist here, but I do not live here."

Victoria could play with this a little. "'I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.'"

This quote didn't supersede Shawn's intellect. He'd played Feste in Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ once, and knew the next lines. He bounced them off a lingering memory. "'The church stands by thy tabour, if thy tabour stand by the church.'" He winced, speculating, reflecting. "That's always been a tricky line."

"How do you mean?" She hadn't come for the entertaining sally of Shakespeare, but was delighted to find it hidden in Shawn's breadth.

"Because Shakespeare had it written as 'The church stands,' but the next line doesn't match at all: 'if thy tabour stand,'" he said. "Stands is third-person present. Stand is just a regular old verb, but he could've easily have used stands there again. Only he didn't write it that way. I wonder why he didn't. Maybe it was just a typo. It is a comedy, after all, and typos can be hilarious."

Victoria had grown more and more amused. She could see why Carlton had let Shawn stand so close to him these many years. He had a slick, serpentine attitude, a charisma that could charm the socks off a centipede in winter. He was like that. Even Carlton wouldn't be able to rally his defenses for a thousand days, unable, eventually, to fight off the terrific and beautiful onslaught of Shawn Spencer.

Shawn was stymied by her Cheshire smile, her ability to reach out, to squeeze his arm as if testing him for realness, to suggest to herself, to the house surrounding them, that he belonged. A peculiar apprehension and a quiet little sadness crept through him, then receded when she let go. The apprehension he didn't know, but it was vaguely attached to Carlton. The sadness was real enough, too: He didn't belong there. Not yet. He felt that he was falling and falling, belonging nowhere. Why did it bother him now, when he'd been living his whole life like that? He could just go back to being who he was before Adrian. It was always easy to go back—at least, he considered, it used to be.

Victoria took a step towards the kitchen. "I came for my mugs."

Shawn had an immediate sense of which mugs were labeled, invisibly, as hers. "The blue ones with the fat curlicue handles?"

"Those," Victoria assented to his astonishing insight. She wondered what his psychic brain had unleashed about Carlton. "Don't worry, Carlton knows I'm coming for them. Here," she handed him her phone, a conversation in text glowing upon his eyes, "you can read all about it. He talks about you."

Shawn looked first for his name. He was arrogant enough to want to know what Lassie had said about him to Victoria. It wasn't much, only an opinion that Shawn might be at the house and might be able to let her in. Victoria's query to her ex-husband wondered if Shawn was his roommate. The question had gone unanswered, and, into the silence of a waiting response, Victoria had texted again that she was knocking on the back door and hoped he'd been right about Shawn's presence.

She had the mugs down from the shelf in the cupboard to the right of the sink. He handed the phone back by lying it nearby on the speckled counter. The blue was stark against the gold and dark faux stain of the kitchen. It was the one drawback to the house, and why, Shawn knew, Carlton was able to buy it without worrying that it'd fly off the market if his first try at financing fell through. It was one of the reasons that Adrian wasn't so keen on the place. He hadn't liked the layout, the wall in the way of the living room, the two doorways, one that went to the hallway, one that went to the dining room that was nothing more than a big empty cube. Adrian wanted the trends, the open concept of living space and kitchen. Shawn hadn't wanted that. He saw no need to have the noise and dirty dishes interrupting the nice sleekness of their house to visitors. Most kitchens should not be seen, and only occasionally should they be smelled.

Adrian and he had planned to have a lot of visitors. Parties on weekend afternoons. Parties in the evening in wintertime. Holiday parties and celebrations for no apparent reason. Football parties, though neither of them cared deeply for sports. But anything at all to keep the people coming, keep their friends close and widen their social sphere.

They had planned to do a lot of things. And now—

"Do you suppose Carlton would mind if I took one of those empty boxes from the dining room?"

"What?" he asked, his typical reaction when he'd been lifted from the stab-wounds of the recent past. He'd heard, but he hadn't let it register. "Yeah, no, he won't mind. Wait, uh," he stumbled through it somehow, the dichotomy between the past and the present, "there's a perfect-sized box in the guest room. I'll get it."

Victoria waited, plucked her phone from the counter. She wrote to Carlton. "Shawn is a good, conscientious host."

**-x-**

Someone's phone chimed. In the middle of the quiet, dark and former convenient store, the chime was loud, chimed on and on. Carlton swung a flashlight beam to illuminate a bit of shelves that'd once held Hostess cakes. He hadn't paid attention to the chime at all. It was one of O'Hara's pet peeves.

"Are you going to check your phone?"

"Nope," he replied crisply. With a gloved hand, he lifted papers, sorted through them, like someone going through a backlog of mail.

"What if it's important?"

"It's not."

"How do you know?"

He didn't want to answer. Back in the old days, when they were just starting out as partners and O'Hara still thought she was in Florida, he would've had no trouble telling her that it was none of her business. Now, however. Now was now. And their lives were too intertwined. O'Hara had even recently joked that she'd wanted Lassiter to be her best man, to stand as a wolf among the sheepish bridesmaids. She was marrying Gus. Gus was Shawn's best friend. Shawn was at his house, right now, talking to his ex-wife. Could the present braid them together even more?

Furious, he zipped his phone from his jacket pocket. The text was, as he knew it was, from Victoria. He'd managed, with the help of You Tube videos, to set up certain chimes for certain people who texted him. All others were default. Victoria was the fourth person he'd assigned her own text message sound. Shawn, of course, had been the first. It was the somber and heavy Beethoven's Fifth, the opening bit. Shawn had joked recently, hearing his chime go off on Lassiter's phone, that he'd hoped Juliet and Gus would walk down the aisle to Beethoven's Fifth. Victoria was a Chopin nocturne. Saccharine things reminded him of her, even all these years later.

He read the text, sent an emoji back but could not think of a joke to go with it. His mind didn't seem capable of degrading Shawn into a prickle and thorn.

O'Hara was still staring at him as he put the phone away.

"There you go. Are you happy now?"

"Happy that you have a social life."

"Texting does not make a social life. It was only Victoria."

O'Hara had learned a few of Lassiter's text sounds. Shawn's was easy. She'd known it wasn't Shawn or Gus. "What'd Victoria want?'

Carlton growled at her and, more fiercely, searched the floor with a flashlight beam. An inward voice began to scream. She'd only find out later. "Victoria went to the house to pick up something she wanted. Some mugs I ended up with by mistake. Shawn's there. She said he was being very nice."

Juliet had a silent moment of longing. What wouldn't it be like to see Shawn and Victoria in the same room, without Lassiter around? Would there be an earthquake? Would a hundred wildflowers bloom where they'd stood? Would angelic choirs sing? She doubted it, but she couldn't help wishing for it. "What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall at your house right now."

"Yeah," he said as a half-laugh. He fully agreed with her. "You and me both."

**-x-**

Shawn brought the box from the guest room. The mugs fit in there perfectly, swathed in a couple of Target's finest paper towels to silence their chinking. He folded the box flaps in on itself. It was set in Victoria's hands, cradled against her.

"Don't worry," Shawn told her, "I'm sure he'll relent about the chair one of these days. Keep nagging him about it."

She might've turned that around to him. The whole not-being-roommates thing, eventually Carlton would relent. At the back door, ready to exit, Victoria couldn't help but give a hint of the Carlton she knew, no doubt different from the one Shawn interacted with almost daily. "You know, he talks about you a lot. He admires you. If you keep nagging him about it, I'm sure he'll relent one of these days."

Ambiguous, Shawn thought. Very. Unable to form a response that might've shocked her, told her something about Lassie she didn't already know or suspect, Shawn tugged hard to get the door open. "Ridiculously difficult," he commented. "The door. Not Carlton."

"Maybe there are reasons he bought this house. Parallels. Thanks for your help, Shawn. See you soon."

He managed to give her a farewell, and stayed in the driveway until her beige vehicle was out of sight. He used a hip and arm strength to put the door back in place. It would've been an easy fix, really. An adjustment there, some sanding there, and it'd swing in and out of the frame without any trouble.

The truth was, Shawn liked it a little more difficult. The obstreperous door seemed to fit the house—and the homeowner. He liked that the house wasn't perfect. Had he and Adrian bought it, and if Adrian had followed through with his plans, all character would've been stripped from those walls, until it was as homogenous as every other building built or remodeled circa 2010. With gray tumbled tile, maybe, and the old pantry converted to something sad, like a wine refrigerator.

Ready for a cup of tea, Shawn went back to the warm gold and brown tones of the 1970s kitchen, and relished its ugliness. Unlike his guts and his heart, it was one thing that Adrian wouldn't be able to get his destructive hands on.


	11. Child & Serpent

**XI. Child & Serpent**

Carlton wasn't sure if Shawn would still be at the house when he got home. He never knew with Shawn, an entity that eclipsed life and existed like a ghost. The presence of the Norton Commando beneath the carport was not proof of Shawn's presence. He wasn't as sure about the bike's non-magical properties as he was of Shawn's non-magical mayhem. The bike seemed to turn up here and there as if it had a mind of its own, or Shawn propelled it through the air with the agility and necessity produced only by Hagrid's flying Triumph from the Harry Potter series. The Norton was here—no, it was there—where was it today?

Sitting in the carport's shade, innocent and not at all clamoring for attention.

He used the back door to let himself in. It stuck terribly, and he'd always meant to fix it. Much like making dentist appointments and buying batteries at the store, it wasn't something he thought about until the door was put to use. Then, of course, he cursed it in the forefront of his thoughts, wondered why he couldn't talk himself into remembering to fix it. Maybe, on a hypothetical level of his semi-conscious, the very perineum of consciousness, he liked the back door sticking. That was the only explanation for forgetfulness.

As soon as the space between door and interior widened, Lassiter lost all care for the sticking mudroom apparatus. His ears were drowned with upbeat and old-fashioned music. It was loud enough that it annoyed him, but not loud enough to make him angry. Anyway, he couldn't be too angry: the music meant Shawn was there—somewhere amid noise and shadows, corners and hallways.

He made it to the dining room, not sure where he was going or what he was looking for. To turn the music down, maybe. But it was coming from the television, he found that out in a split second. Benny Goodman, the screen told him: When It's Sleepy Time Down South. One of the cable music channels that he rarely used, that Shawn used when he was over, during one of the parties or get-togethers Carlton had rarely had since moving in. He'd forgotten to turn the music on during Saturday's barbecue, because Shawn hadn't come. He'd said he would—_yeah_—but he hadn't.

Carlton was reaching for the remote when Shawn popped from one of the shadows, one of the hallways. On his hands, bright yellow cleaning gloves. In his fists, one soiled cloth and one spray bottle. The appearance of him caught Carlton off his guard. He was embarrassed, not sure why. Like catching someone's exposed soul, seeing someone he cared about engaged in a very naughty act. His cheeks got hot and his vocabulary fell into the kindergarten variety.

"What are you doing?"

"If I'm not cleaning, then I'm dressed funny," Shawn returned. He flailed the spray-bottle hand. "Wait, Lass! Don't turn it down!"

Carlton nearly lost the remote, so startled by Shawn's yelling. "It's really loud, though!"

"It's almost over!" Shawn wasn't sure he was winning. The beat moved him. The synchronicity of the instruments moved him. "Just—just—" he wriggled the remote free, "let it play for thirty more seconds. And really listen to it."

Carlton wondered. Shawn might've played in a big band once, or crooned for one. Shawn had done a lot of things in his life, more than Carlton could find if he dug deeper and deeper into Shawn's personal history. He didn't understand Shawn, why he should be there with cleaning gloves on his hands and cleaning supplies at the ready. And a little sensation like lightning took off beneath Carlton's sternum, and the only thing he could understand was that Shawn was not meant to be comprehended. He defied it. Like understanding quantum mechanics or taxes. He could be absorbed but not subsumed. Shawn wasn't inscrutable, not exactly, but he was beyond conformity. Things that didn't conform couldn't be grasped: they were free, vast, moved and tumbled like flames in empty air.

The song ended, bled into another jazzy tune. Carlton realized that he hadn't really listened to the song at all, as commanded. Their fingertips were still close together, their hands still joined on the remote. They were anything but remote. Carlton let go. Shawn turned the music down, but didn't turn it off. It shifted the background of the house, made it seem cozy and quaint. Unfinished memories of his grandparents and his great-grandparents at family picnics in the summertime wended towards him, faded into the fog again. They must've listened to jazz, he thought, and now the memories of them had brought them near, and his emotional awareness of them only scared them away again.

They were in the kitchen. Shawn peeled off the gloves when he'd rinsed them. He watched Lassie look into the cupboard, spy the widened spots between mugs where the blue ceramic specimens with the curlicue handles had once rested.

"They went to a better home," Shawn told him. He set the cleaning supplies under the sink. The gloves were laid limply over the edge of the sink to dry. "You know we never used them." He thought of fixing the pronoun but didn't. It hung there, though, solid and stable and— "I always like to use the one that says Kiss The Cook, though you never take me up on the offer."

To Shawn's surprise, Carlton actually snickered at the joke. He closed the cupboard doors with an undeserved reverence. He leaned his backside against the edge of the counter, crossed his ankles in front of him, his arms across his chest. "What else did you do today beside clean and talk to my ex-wife?"

"No, no, don't do that: don't give me too much credit: that's basically it. Wait—I thought of something else! I gave her a box, too. One from the guest room so she could take the mugs home without them jumping all over the place. You know how anxious mugs can get." He paused enough to half-inhale. "She said she still wants the beige chair back."

Carlton breathed out, rubbing his chin and tightening his eyes. He knew Victoria wanted the chair back. Eh, someday—when he was ready to part with it. He'd parted with a lot of things, that was true. The chair was the last thing he really had that had been theirs. Victoria just liked it better.

"You," now Shawn stumbled over the proper pronoun, as if 'we' had been more relevant, "never sit in it, anyway. Much like the blue curlicue-handle mugs, it could go to a better home."

"I might use it if it had a blanket that said Kiss the Cook."

"Yeah, I see how it is," Shawn mumbled, enjoying the banter, that Lassie had thought of it all on his own. "And with such sportive camaraderie, I feel I should tell you that Gus and I went to the massage parlor, reiki-place this afternoon."

"Did you learn anything?"

"There's a reiki workshop this weekend. I'm going, as is my protege, Branch Von Hazel."

"And that's Gus."

"Absolutely. Do you know anyone else who could pull off an alias like Branch Von Hazel?"

"Vin Diesel."

"I stand corrected."

"What do you hope to glean at this workshop, anyway?"

"Insight into whether our body was there or not. Also, how to get more use out of the Distant Symbol. I really don't understand it."

"Can't you just ask someone?"

"About the symbol?"

"No, dumb-dumb, the body."

"Ah, well, no. Where's the fun in that, Lassie?"

"Can't your psychic mojo-hoodoo stuff just tell you whether he was there?"

"Again, I ask, where's the fun in that?"

Carlton had his mouth drawn over his teeth, not sure if he should smile or cut this conversation short. Shawn didn't usually tell him what he'd done during an investigation, not in a way so banal as dialogue. It was acted out, shown later, well after the fact and when reprimands might be cast as harmless webs. He noticed they were standing close to each other in a small, close kitchen. He could've reached out a hand and touched Shawn's shoulder, his wrist, that more sensual spot on his neck. He shoved his hands in his pockets instead.

"Be careful when you and Gus go. We don't know what the body was up to."

"I don't think he was bad. Inner Magic 8-ball says he was harmless."

"Maybe he was using reiki to try and take over the world."

"Rather doubtful. It doesn't work that way." Shawn bounced his eyes between Lassiter's. Knowledge was there, incubated and lonely. "Why do you even know what it is, reiki? Most people of your jive and vibration level don't have a clue."

"My mom used it. Uses it. Says it helps her arthritis. And overall crankiness. Victoria had me do it once. Thought it'd help." He didn't need to say what Victoria thought it would help. "It was hard to lie still for an hour, but it seemed otherwise relaxing. Why?" Carlton blinked at his own answer. "Oh. You do it. Of course you do." He was riveted and bothered by Shawn's small smile, part triumph and part shyness. "Damn it. Is there anything you don't do, Shawn Spencer?"

Shawn's head buzzed and sound went fuzzy. "Too many answers that one, Lassie!" And walked off.

Carlton let out a sigh, relieved of pain and the influx of tension. He hadn't thought there was anything remorseful or brooding in Shawn's statement, until he saw Shawn on the couch, a pillow clutched to his chest, and a stare into space that suggested broken dreams. He wondered what it was Adrian had said to Shawn Spencer that hurt so badly, that split them up, that made Shawn second-guess himself. Was it something Shawn had done? He remembered the darkness that'd concealed Shawn's gaze just seconds before, and concluded that it was something Shawn didn't do. One thing out of thousands that he did not do. How was that possible? Shawn did it all—with passion and without remorse, with fun and completeness. What was wrong with Adrian—and did Carlton really have the time to start wondering that? He fumed, sat next to Shawn on the couch and thumbed through his old book of Russian poetry.

"He isn't worth it," he said, leaving the book back on the coffee table. "Stop thinking about all the things you didn't say. Start remembering to live your life the way you want to."

"I don't know how," Shawn muttered, frustrated at the imposition. "It's like he's stopped my whole life. Like I've gone stagnant. I've turned to stone. I can't look into my past too deeply because I see the mistakes there. I can't look into the future because I might make the same mistakes, because I might be all those awful things he said I was."

"Just because he said them doesn't make them true."

"They feel true." Shawn blinked and pressed his head against the pillow. He wished Lassiter would go away. It was his own house, of course, and wishing him to go away from his own house was ridiculous. No more than feeling the heavy, cramped sensation of disdain and anger pressing against his chest, rimming his eyes in hard-earned tears. "They are true."

The statement rose Carlton's temper. "Whatever he said, Shawn, you're better than that. You've lived more and done more and made more mistakes and had more achievements in your thirty-four years than anyone else could ever do if they lived to be a hundred. Maybe Adrian was just jealous, and didn't realize it. Him and his boring life. Who really finds it thrilling to be a business and property lawyer, anyway? He was born and raised in Ventura, and how boring is that? He's the loser here, with no right to make you feel this way about yourself. What'd he want from you—blood?"

"Blood would've been easy. He wanted containment."

Lassiter heard the remark, filed it away for later. Shawn was quiet for a moment, reverb of what Lassiter had said floating through his mind. Carlton wouldn't notice, probably not until three in the morning, that he'd admitted one piece of value to Shawn, without realizing it. Lassie had looked into Adrian Harris-Collins. There was no way Gus had told him what Adrian did for a living, and Shawn hadn't told anyone else. Carlton must've examined Adrian from his perfectly tidy desk at the police station, and, as Shawn knew, outside of it, too. Lassiter was nothing if not thorough.

That was more comforting than a thousand cups of tea, than a thousand apologies from Adrian.

He just hoped Lassie didn't dig any deeper. There were hidden things that should stay covered. Things he didn't want to talk about. Public things that were very, very private about him, about Adrian. But if Lassiter knew—then he knew. Shawn was unable to stop it.

Lassiter was piqued and bothered. "Containment?" he repeated with derision. "What, he wanted you to stay inside all day, like a bird in a cage?"

Shawn opened his mouth to say something about it then. Containment—holding—forever and ever, amen. He closed his mouth again. "Conformity would've been a better word."

Lassiter read through this, taping up the slivers of Shawn's shredded relationship. "He wanted you to get a real job?"

"In a sense."

"I don't know why," Carlton rubbed his palms on the ends of his knees, up his thighs a little. "You do well for yourself."

"I'm living in your house, Lassie."

"That's more by choice than circumstance."

"Sometimes circumstance is better than choice. I've always found that to be true. 'My house doth stand by the church,'" Shawn murmured. He was pulled this way and that by the niceness Lassie displayed, and broken apart again by the too-strong, too-vibrant memories of his last fight with Adrian. The end of it all. Saturday. He thought of saying it, then. More about him and Adrian. About the laundrette. He could go—he _could_ go—only he didn't want to go. Circumstance was better than choice.

"Just—don't let him keep getting you down." Lassiter patted Shawn at the shoulder, guarded, ineffectively, too resilient to provide comfort. "You're worth a thousand Adrians."

Shawn wondered who'd read whose mind. "Thanks, Lassie." Because Carlton was getting up and leaving the room, and Shawn felt he should acknowledge the exposure that'd happened.

"I'm not great at giving you pep talks, Shawn. You think so highly of yourself that, sooner or later, you pep yourself up."

"Not for that," Shawn said, holding Lassie's gaze across the sparse room. "Thanks for looking into him."

Carlton blanched, felt his feet thicken and his throat constrict. He had said that, hadn't he? He'd admitted it without realizing it. "Yeah, well, just—just keeping an eye on you, that's all. Imagine how many people I'd have to answer to if something happened to you."

"In the future, you can keep both eyes on me. I'll let you."

Carlton gave a shake of his head and snort-laughed. "What makes you think I don't already?"

Shawn fell sideways on the couch, stared at the television screen. Lassie had turned the music down, but hadn't turned it off. Somehow, that old-time music had become the soundtrack of his Get Better and Get Over It Days. The days and hours that reminded him of contentment and solitude, being in that house when Carlton was gone, when he wasn't off working the Body case or seeking information or entertainment elsewhere.

He must've dozed off or fell into dreamland—waking to the same disembodied rap-rap-rapping at the backdoor that had drawn him from slumber earlier that day. The light had shifted around the living room, coddling furniture in longer, deeper, riskier shadows, and leaving soft plum-and-navy highlights as the sun drew the day to a close. The television was still on, still playing music, but it'd gone to the New Age channel instead, and the sounds of the band 2002 filled his ears with aquatic euphony. Lassie's footfalls were generated from the kitchen, as were aromas of a simmering dinner. Lassie was a blank, stark shadow across the sliding door, and vanished into the wholeness of the mudroom. With effort, the door opened.

"You should get that fixed," a familiar masculine voice said.

"It's part of the house's charm," Lassiter replied, "and I think it's metaphorical somehow. He's in the living room."

Shawn rustled up from the apricot chenille throw, not knowing how it'd fallen over him. The blanket fairy, maybe, because he couldn't picture Lassie caring enough. He tried his best to look awake as his dad walked into the twilight watercolor of the living room.

"Hi, Dad."

"Shawn," Henry said, taking this all in. Shawn, Lassiter's, the couch, the peach colored blanket. All that was missing were Shawn's shoes strewn about and a cat. He could imagine them having a cat. A weird one. One without a tail, or one of those hairless creatures that was doubtlessly a cross between a cat and a gargoyle, furless and with bat wings. "Hey, is your bike working?"

"Yeah," Shawn sounded sleepier than he felt. It was almost seven-thirty and he shouldn't have slept so long. "Why? Do you need it? Got a hot date?"

"On a Thursday?"

"It's Thursday?"

"No."

"It's not Thursday?"

Carlton leaned against a nearby wall, snickering at this sordid mess between son and father. Henry glared at him, and Carlton mumbled an apology before going back to the stove.

"It's Thursday. I tried to call but you didn't answer."

Shawn reached for his phone, hidden under a book he'd stolen from Lassie's guest-room shelf, and made the display light up. For the first time since _The Awful Thing_ had occurred, he didn't wonder what would happen if he saw a text from Adrian. He didn't, but there was one from Brooke, Adrian's sister. There were two from Gus. There were three missed calls and one text from his dad. Henry's veneer wasn't as tough as epoxy. Shawn could chink at it, and see himself there, cut and vulnerable, in his father's eyes.

"I'm fine," Shawn said, "just a little tired and achy, that's all."

"I saved you some steak, not realizing you'd be eating here." Henry looked to find Lassiter had taken up the other doorway between kitchen and that nowhere space that was neither the hallway nor the living room. The house had a strange layout. Henry had always thought he'd like the place better if it lost a few walls, if those walls had some color. Prior to the house going on the market, the walls had been painted various shades of gray. It suited Lassiter, but Henry sensed that the suitability of it was shifting. The more Shawn hung around. His son was capable of splashing rainbow hues wherever he went, and made people long for things they didn't realize they needed in their lives. "Why are you achy?"

"I don't know." He didn't want to mention Adrian in front of his dad. It wasn't to be talked about. Instead, he tipped them around it. "What were you like, and how did you feel, when mom left you?"

"Well, turn about is fairy play," Henry mumbled. He didn't ask. Shawn didn't tell. These were their little rules, their wide, galactic lies. It was as Maddie had said, that if he chose to think of this as Shawn having lost a friend, that was all it was. Shawn had lost a friend. His best friend of the last year. And whatever was beyond that—beyond that was the stuff that belonged in Star Trek, for all Henry cared. He sighed, knowing that wasn't strictly true, either. He did care.

"Coffee, Henry?" Lassiter asked.

"Yeah, sure. Decaf?"

"I have the stuff if you're really interested," he said, pausing a second to meet Shawn's eyes and read what he could there. He turned back to the kitchen. "Decaf it is."

Shawn wanted to ask what they were eating—it smelled well enough to stir the remnants of his appetite. He'd rather be surprised. His dad sat next to him, lobbed a fist against his knee then smoothed back his hair.

"Get a haircut, hippy."

"I'm working on it. I have to build up to these things."

"Well, do it soon, or your bike helmet won't fit."

Shawn's hair was wavy when it grew longer, with little baby-like curls at the ends. A gift, his mother used to say, from his grandfather—his mom's dad. The Scottish ones who'd lived in the Midwest and still had a family house in the Middle of Nowhere, Indiana. He'd seen the photographs and portraits, curly heads, a burnished pale brown that his went to if he stood in the sun too long, that hairs on his chin were if he didn't shave. He rubbed his chin then, self-conscious of peppery red sticklers flying from follicles. He hadn't shaved in a while. No wonder his dad had called him a hippy.

"Did you drive out here to see if I'd cut my hair yet?"

"No," Henry answered into a sigh. His hands wound together in front of him, his thumbs twitching. "And yeah, a little. I knew you were here. Gus told me he dropped you off earlier. Where else would you go?" He hadn't meant it to sound the way it had, insinuating, disrespecting. He changed it where and how he could. "In difficult times, we go where we're comfortable. "In difficult times, we go where we're comfortable."

Shawn grunted to signal that he understood this.

"Did Lassiter tell you what he found at the shop when he and O'Hara went there?"

"No," and it hadn't occurred to Shawn to ask. "We just had some witty banter about me and Gus going to the massage parlor, but that's all. Why? Did he find something? Lassie!"

Henry leaned away as Shawn raised his voice to carry to the kitchen.

"What?" But Lassiter didn't leave the coffeepot.

"Did you find something at the abandoned shop in Samarkand?"

Lassiter went back to the doorway, holding a bag of decaf coffee and a small metal scoop in the other. He winced at Shawn, sure that they'd talked about this—then positive that they hadn't. "No, we didn't find anything interesting. A Twinkie, still in its wrapping, from 1987." He was glad Shawn had found that funny, displayed by a small smile and a scintillation of humor in his eyes. "That was all. Then again," he went back to the coffeepot, "we're not psychics."

Shawn could read his dad's look: Are you ever going to tell him?

And be beheaded? No. It wasn't worth it.

Look at what had happened when Adrian came too close to the truth!

"Gus and I have a lead," Shawn told, "and we'll follow it up Saturday."

"Great! Good. What are you going to do until then?"

"Learn to do the Melbourne shuffle." It was easier to make a joke than to show glimpses of the truth: lie still, plan, heal, hope. He didn't want to say those things. If he didn't say them, then maybe this would all prove to be a cyclone in a nightmare. Adrian would float down on the gusts, return to him.

Shawn wasn't so sure he wanted Adrian. Why would he want to be with someone who thought him capable of such terrible things? It made no sense. It was illogical. Love was blind and stupid, ridiculous, uncontrollable, frightening—painful. He couldn't want to be with someone who believed him capable of those accusations. He couldn't. And, therefore, he couldn't be with Adrian. And there was no point in mourning. Yet the pain still existed. It was the absence of the habit that hurt the most, he guessed. And the smell of Adrian when he got out of the shower, and the way they laughed when they cooked dinner—

"Dad, did you want anything else? If not, I think I'll go help Lassie cook whatever he's trying to cook. I want to be a good houseguest."

"Just don't be one that outstays his welcome."

Shawn gave a silent salute to acknowledge that. Naturally, a father wouldn't want his son to be rude. He thought again of the laundrette hanging in the distant past, the ever-threatening future. "Unless you want to stay to help yourself to a hobbit-like second supper, I assume you can find your way to the door."

He was sort of relieved, in a way, that Lassie invited Henry to stay, if not for the food than at least for a beer. The three of them sat at the table in the backyard and chatted into the softly-scented night.


	12. A Song to the Moon

**XII. A Song to the Moon**

At least one night a week, Carlton didn't sleep well. Whatever it was that dug around in his subconscious merely haunted him between the hours of midnight and 4 AM. Early Friday morning, the last day of his traditional, but not always solid, work week, Carlton had lain awake in his bedroom for the better part of forty minutes before he decided to get up. While lying there, he wondered what he was doing, being so wide awake in the first place. It was possible that Shawn's gentle footfalls had woken him, if Shawn had really gotten out of bed at all. To his amazement, Shawn's humanness meant that he had to do things like brush his teeth before bed, go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, just like everyone else. It was humorous to discover that Shawn Spencer was built of flesh and bone and biology, like a real boy. Shawn's naturalness brought wonder to Carlton, alone in his bedroom in the wee small hours. He wasn't altogether too pleased to discover that Shawn had flesh. It was a long, long way from meeting the juvenile, insensate humanoid creature that was partially responsible for solving numerous crimes around the city, but also for having Lucinda removed, for a blemish on Carlton's personnel record and a smear upon his character. But they went way, way back—really. He could remember Shawn as a young man, Henry Spencer's kid—with no inkling of the genius that was to come. Or this—whatever this was—a strange fairyland of friendship, happening only at twilight, or the hours between midnight and 4 AM when he found himself caring the most.

And why did Shawn know how to do everything? It was annoying. It annoyed.

Carlton's jaw tensed. He cracked a knuckle, remembering the bitterness of the day Lucinda Barry left. He'd never, ever told anyone, not even O'Hara, not even his therapist, what Chief Vick had asked of him when Lucinda was out and Shawn Spencer was in. It did not bear repeating.

Much like the conversation he'd had about Shawn to Chief Vick. She'd seemed amused that Shawn was staying with her successful head detective, but not enough to reprimand Shawn. Instead, she'd ridiculed him—oh, only mildly, sure—about attaching Shawn to his own benefits package. Shawn probably didn't really have health insurance, anyway. A bad position to be in when your main duty was to solve crimes and aid the Santa Barbara Police Department.

Was it true, did Shawn really not have insurance? Of course, Carlton flattered himself that, by then, he could tell when Shawn was lying. That simply wasn't true, it was just a grandiose personal assessment. His ego getting in the way merely to belittle Shawn. He could no more tell when Shawn was lying than when Shawn was telling the truth. Shawn was the only person Carlton knew that could make telling the truth and telling a lie the exact same thing.

Rolling over in bed, Carlton kept still for another handful of seconds. But his head ached and his stomach tumbled in wrong directions. The culprit for this current bout of insomnia was obviously the modified leftovers he'd prepared for dinner. Or Shawn, coming in to help the last ten minutes, had poisoned him with clear drops onto his plate. Carlton scratched the top of his head, no itch there, really, but just a childhood tick that he did when thinking deeply about one particular thing.

Out of bed now, Carlton pulled on a sweatshirt which said something about a California athletics team—he didn't know—it was an old birthday present from Victoria—but it was warm against the chilly, stagnant night air that tickled the windows. Just a step removed from his small, back corner bedroom, Carlton looked across to the partially open door of the guest room, where Shawn, presumably, was sleeping. Or recharging. Or whatever it was he did. Carlton chewed the inside of his lips as he reached for the door handle, pulled it close to the jamb, and heard a faint, satisfying click. He was used to shutting the door on Shawn in the middle of the night, now. It was part of their routine.

Although he couldn't tell when Shawn was lying to him, not exactly, he knew the silty feel of Shawn's presence. And he knew that Shawn had been an overnight guest at his house far longer than the last week, but off and on for the last two weeks. Shawn would sneak in around midnight, about an hour after Lassiter turned the lights off in his house—the light over the succulents above the kitchen sink, the lamp in his bedroom—and would head directly to the guest room. The door would be shut. There'd be silence in the house. The first night it happened, Carlton nearly felt like pummeling Shawn full of bullets, thinking he was an intruder. But it was the smell that gave him an idea that it was Shawn. What was that smell, anyway? It seemed to alter and shift, depending on Carlton's mood. And that night, it'd been like dusty books and a garden by the sea. He'd known it was Shawn, had decided to leave the reprimand for morning, and went back to bed with the Glock 26 9mm placed in the nightstand drawer.

Instead of losing his cool and hurling insults at Spencer, Carlton hadn't said anything at all. Now, in the present, he'd closed Shawn's bedroom door again and wended his way, silently, to the living room of his darling little house. Its four walls were supposed to represent a shift in his life, a newness. It had, in a way, fulfilled that duty. It was easy to not notice Victoria everywhere he looked. Now, all he seemed to notice, was himself, was Shawn.

He turned on a small reading light at the far end of the sofa. The glow hit the ceiling, threw the room into dimension—and showed him Shawn, all of Shawn, lying on the sofa beneath a blanket Carlton recognized from the back bedroom. He paused, not sure what to do. When Shawn's eyelids fluttered, it gave Carlton a sense of relief. They were both awake at 5 AM.

Shawn had seen this coming. Lassie tossed and turned some nights, not all nights. And there was a pattern that Shawn had discovered. Tossed salad Lassie, and a few snores, then tossed salad Lassie again, and then the scrambled, soggy mess of Lassie finally appeared, reluctant and deprived, in the living room. "I'm awake," he announced lamely. He sat upright, leaving the fluff of the comforter swirling and whooshing around him. "As are you."

Carlton didn't know what to do. Go back to bed? Tell Shawn to go back to bed? But he'd seen the redness of Shawn's eyes, the nearby box of tissues, one alert specimen sticking from the top of the box, and thought the better of it. Shawn's insomnia had a name, at least, and its name was Adrian. Carlton found himself wishing he knew more about what'd happened, why this one had hurt Shawn more than the others. If he dug any deeper, he didn't know what he'd find, and it wasn't any of his business. Shawn would tell when he wanted, and whether he ever did, or if he never did, Carlton couldn't make him speak.

Instead, he gathered up the wadded tissues, most of which were still cold and damp, and carried them to the garbage in the kitchen. "Do you want some coffee, or are you going back to sleep?"

Shawn sighed, leaned into the back of the sofa. He was glad they didn't have to talk about it. There were times in the past, with Gus, that they didn't have to talk about things because those things were so self-evident. He and Gus were too close to bother verbalizing anything. It seemed that he'd reached that haven with Lassie, too. Or Lassie knew, had his assumptions, wild and perhaps accurate as they were, and did not need to speak them—either for a fear of being wrong, or a wish that he wasn't right. Shawn felt his eyes stinging again but knew he'd used his last tissue. He wasn't even sure what the tears were for. They snuck up on him, though. Bothered and annoyed, stayed too long, burned too much. It was the awareness of his earlier assessment, that he couldn't and wouldn't go back to Adrian even if Adrian begged and pleaded. It was too strong a conviction. He could never be with someone that thought him capable of horrible things. That was what hurt.

And that he'd have to leave all of this. The house on Sunberry Lane that was supposed to be his and Adrian's, and now belonged to Lassiter. But there he was, anyway, sitting on Lassiter's couch in the house that was supposed to have bene his and Adrian's. It was a weird, comic twist that only his life could take. As he loved presenting Socratic irony to the world, so the world fashioned its own irony for him to spin in.

Coffee began to take over Shawn's wakening senses. Dawn hovered, crisp and silver, against the windowpanes. He could tell a competition was afoot by the wriggling gleam of delight in Lassiter's eyes as he returned to the living room.

"Hey."

"Hmm?" Shawn murmured, head buzzing with noise, broken words, lost sentiments, and the haze of lack of sleep.

"How about a short, slow jog around the neighborhood before breakfast?"

Shawn peeled his fingers aside his eyes. "Carlton—your breakfast usually consists of a banana, or some piece of fruit, and about eight cups of coffee."

Carlton shrugged. "I don't see your point. Yes or no, Spencer."

Shawn kicked off the fluffy comforter but had trouble freeing himself from its glue-like confines. Lassie actually came over to help extricate him. "Where did she find this thing, anyway? Jeez, it's like a Care Bear cloud that wants to eat you! But, fine—fine—one slow and short jog around the neighborhood. I'll go put on something decent. Don't want your neighbors staring at my delicious ass."

Carlton caught a glimpse of Shawn's spindly legs beneath boxers, socks on, before the silhouette formed into a shadow down the hall. He readied himself, too, but even if he took his time, he waited two more minutes for Shawn to put in an appearance. For once, the front door was used. They stretched a little in the front yard, dew and dampness and birdsong around them. They were more into the jog than the stretching, and Carlton declared that he was ready before Shawn really felt awake and fired up with the same competitiveness. He was thankful that some of Carlton's sportive truculence waned as they completed the first block. They talked a little about the houses they jogged by. The cast of the new morning was odd, not yet fully day, and not still night, and lights lit up the interior of houses, to the delight of both. Shawn had always loved to look in people's houses when the lights were on inside, when the curtains were apart. It was like watching a movie, or it was just mildly thrilling to see how people decorated, where they had their televisions, if there was a dog or cat in the window. A few neighbors were out, collecting papers, letting their dogs in the yard on leashes. Shawn often waved, though it didn't occur to Carlton to do such a thing before he saw Shawn doing it and receiving waves and greetings in return. Shawn had that sort of power, though, the kind that turned everyone into sweetness and candy. Whether they stared at Shawn's delicious ass was not pondered by Carlton, and Shawn only thought of it fleetingly.

By the time they got back to the house, disheveled and feeling old and out of shape, the sun had come up. They both stopped short at the end of the driveway. It'd been taken over by a police cruiser, engine off and lights out, parked behind Carlton's car. A uniform was at the front door, too. Shawn recognized the short legs and long arms of one very endearing officer.

"Hey, Dobson! Dobbie! Over here!"

Dobson spun around, put the flashlight back on his belt. "Hey, Shawn! Ah, Detective Lassiter!" He stepped lively down the little hill to meet them at the corner of the driveway and the street. Awkwardness severed the air. "Thought I'd stop by, see if everything was okay. But I guess you know that he's here, then, huh?"

"Of course I do," Lassiter commented, crossing his sweaty forearms over his damp sweatshirt. "Is McNab with you?"

Dobson was a perpetual grin. "He's in the back, checking things out. We drove by, saw the Norton, and thought—"

He dribbled to a stop with the appearance of McNab. Buzz was tall, and on the slight incline where he came to a stop, created him as a half-giant.

"Hey, Shawn—Detective Lassiter. Good morning. It's a nice morning, now that some of the fog has burned off. So. Anyway. I guess Dobson filled you in, huh? We were going to stop for some food but we were in the neighborhood. Then we saw the Norton. And thought, hey—"

"I see." Lassiter interrupted them, parting the wall of uniforms to make his way up to the house. Neither uniforms nor Shawn followed. He wrenched around for a second, then started forward again. Shawn he didn't have to worry about. For once, Shawn was following him. But Dobson and McNab required coaxing. "You two may as well come in for some coffee."

McNab had seen Lassiter's place before. He'd been at the barbecue last Saturday, the one that saw Detective Lassiter spend a lot of time throwing dark, dark looks at his phone, or peering with anticipation around the side of the house every time a car went by. Buzz had never found out why. Once in the living room, it became apparent that things at Lassiter's place had varied slightly. At first, Buzz wasn't able to put his finger on it. Then, anomalies were highlighted. The comforter on the couch. Books on the coffee table. A jacket on the back of the beige chair. The place looked lived-in.

There was nowhere to sit, except the living room. Shawn removed chattels from the chair, commenting to Dobson that it was one of those pieces of furniture that drew miscellany, a cloth version of a junk drawer. Dobson chuckled, said he had one of those at his place, too. Buzz sat on the sofa, picked at the first thing that his eyeballs landed upon.

"Are you reading this, Detective Lassiter?"

Lassiter had brought Buzz his coffee. "When I'm at home, McNab, you can drop the detective part. No, I'm not. I've read it, but I think Shawn was looking at it, if not reading it."

"Shawn probably could finish this in a day," McNab said, thumbing the pages of the book before taking the coffee from Lassiter.

Like most, McNab couldn't see any harm in Shawn, and believed him capable of inhuman feats. Even Shawn would have trouble reading a whole book of Immanuel Kant in one day. Of course, Carlton recognized that it was possible, but it went beyond reason as to why Shawn would want to. He made a fierce wish that Shawn would stop pawing his way through the old college textbooks on the guest room shelf. Shawn's piercing eyes and thirst for knowledge might see too much, might put together too much from the little drops of history Carlton's innocuous collection of textbooks left behind.

When Shawn came back to the living room, armed with his own cup of coffee, he raised his eyebrows at Lassie. It was a silent comment about the unprecedented company at seven-thirty in the morning. "Pretty quiet this morning, you guys?"

"Oh, yeah," Buzz said. "We started at five. Nothing much happening."

"A drunk and disorderly downtown," Dobson said. He sipped his coffee, looked into the mug as if wondering what he was drinking—it was strong and delicious, but he'd been broken down by years of break-room coffee at the station. Lassiter drank the real stuff, not that chicory root junk. He and Mike didn't drink much coffee at home. Him being a cop, Mike being a fireman, they had their fair share of bad brew throughout the day at their respective workplaces. "That's about it, though. This coffee's good, and I like what you've done with the place, Carlton."

He'd known Dobson for years, but it was difficult to study the comment to find its deeper meaning. Shawn's presence was implicated. It was against his tongue to form a phrase about Shawn's stay being temporary—just a thing that had happened—but he closed his mouth right away. That might've been how Dobson met Mike. A temporary thing. A short-lived surrender to insanity that'd never gone away. A tassel of fear curdled Lassiter's if that happened to him? What if Shawn never went away?

But it reformed in his mind. _What if Shawn never went away?_

Before he could do anything about it, Dobson and McNab were heading out after a call from dispatch. The whirlwind they left behind was tidied by Shawn. Mugs were left in the sink. And, for the first time, Carlton actually noticed that Shawn's preference for a certain mug was true. He ripped a banana from the bundle and handed it to Shawn, keeping one for himself.

"It never occurred to me to kiss the cook," he said, pointing with the banana tip to the phrase on the side of Shawn's mug. His mother had given him that mug ages ago. He'd never used it, too hokey for him, but he hadn't the heart to get rid of it either. His mother hadn't bestowed a lot of gifts, and he was in the phase of his life were getting rid of some things was easy, getting rid of others was too difficult.

"Your loss," Shawn returned. "I am a better kisser than I am a cook. If you tasted my cooking, you might actually want to kiss me for it. And vice-versa." He grinned, playfully, meaning to aggravate his willing banter-partner, before taking another sip of coffee. The black serif font on the side of the white mug blazoned with its suggestion.

"Good thing you're not cooking my banana. I'm going to shower and get ready for work."

"Please wear that orange shirt that's in your closet. I never see you wear it. Like, ever."

"Not listening. I can dress myself."

"Puh, that's debatable," Shawn muttered into his coffee.

Lassiter whipped back to the kitchen, leaned over the edge of the doorway. One dark eyebrow was up, the other slanted in displeasure. "When you start wearing shirts that are buttoned all the way up and tucked into a nice pair of trousers, with a tie, then you can tell me what to wear. Until that day," he stalled, remembering who'd ironed his trousers—and Vick's crack about how his ties had never looked sharper since Shawn had started staying with him, "well, until that day, stay out of my closet!"

"There's no closet I don't enjoy going into!"

Lassiter groaned, thinking that was too easy, even for—he glanced at the clock in his bedroom—7:38 in the morning. As he was about to haul himself, and fresh clothes, no orange shirt, from the bedroom to the bathroom, he paused at the doorway to the guest room. Shawn had left the door open after he'd thrown on jeans and a fresh polo shirt. A bundle of socks had been slammed in a dresser drawer. Boxers, seemingly used, hung limply out of a hamper in the corner. The bed was unmade, the comforter of killer clouds in a mortally inviting pile of silky fluff. But the bookshelf gave Carlton a moment's hesitation. All his college books upright, their spines glinting familiar titles in the dim light. There was a hollow where the Russian poetry had been removed, and he didn't mind Shawn reading it, as long as he put it back. It was one of the few that meant something to him, books that held a name in the upper corner that wasn't his. He could close his eyes and still see Arturo's beautiful signature. He saw it again, flashed in a brilliant moment with the memory of a burly laugh, before he turned from the room, the books on the shelf, and headed for his eucalyptus body wash.

To Lassiter's surprise, if not his chagrin, Shawn had migrated from the living room to the picnic table in the backyard, and refused to go with him to the station that morning.

It wasn't without hesitation that Shawn refused. He had a couple of ideas he wanted to get to that day. And, if he was being honest with himself, when Lassie wore that particular set of colors, blue and black, it made him a little more willing to go with Lassiter just about anywhere. He disregarded the awakening part of himself, the part that was healing in the loss of Adrian. He had Lassie to thank for it, in a way, but he had to give himself credit, too. He wouldn't have found a way to get out of bed in the morning if he hadn't really wanted to. Seeing Lassiter in a crisp blue shirt and a black tie with white checks on it—not one he wore often—went a long way to making sure Shawn leaped from bed—or the couch—in the morning. The jog had fueled him, too. What had they even talked about? Houses, he guessed, houses in a neighborhood that was supposed to have been his—half his, half Adrian's. Straight down the line. Instead, he jogged through the neighborhood with Carlton at his side, waving to neighbors and puppies and kitties in windows. But he didn't like this. It was too cozy. It was too much, too soon. He wanted to back away, let Lassie do his own thing, and he wanted, now, to go his own way.

He wondered if he'd still feel so convinced by the end of the day.

Carlton sensed the change. It was as noticeable as the weather, but far more ambiguous. He had a feeling that, when he got home that night, Shawn would be gone. Maybe he'd go stay with his dad. Maybe he'd find a soft spot in Gus and Juliet, knead it until they let him stay with them. A piece of Carlton snapped off, and he could almost feel a physical bit of himself drop to the grass at the soles of his shoes. He stepped forward, inching that lost piece into the soil. "Want to have lunch later?"

Shawn set his phone aside, partly rehearsing what he'd say to Brooke in his head, partly because he'd been reading a newspaper article. Something his dad had said yesterday tickled the back of Shawn's thoughts, brought thoughts of the body closer, wider, burning with a shimmery perspective. Lassiter had leaned over, leaned so far over that the tip of his tie rested very near Shawn's face. He pinched the end of it, gave it a tug. The knot was a little off-center, and Shawn allowed himself the satisfaction of centering it. "I can't," he remembered to say. He let go of the tie, but not without giving it another tug first. "I'm trying to make plans to meet someone for lunch."

Carlton leaned back, fearful and wary. "Not Adrian," he blurted out, like this was any of his business to begin with. He recalled what he'd inadvertently admitted yesterday, and a heat boiled the roof of his mouth, set off small fires of shame in his gut.

Shawn just smirked, stood from the picnic table seat with his cup of coffee. "No, not Adrian. I'll tell you more when I know more. Stay out of trouble today."

"That's boring," Lassiter quipped. He tucked his tie back in place, not forgetting how Shawn had tugged at it. What was the word for that? Not annoying, not troublesome—what was the word? He finally thought of it: cute. Annoying and vexatiously adorable. "It's boring—but comfortable. If you don't have plans for lunch, after all, let me know. We should probably spend more time with Gus and O'Hara. Keeps their stress level to a minimum."

It probably helped having their friends around while wedding plans deepened and stressors increased. They were nearly in the homestretch now. Soon enough, it'd all be over, and Shawn gave a rueful little smirk at the idea of that ending. Literally, there'd be a party. "I'll keep it in mind."

"And it'd help you out, too," Carlton ventured to add. "I know how tough breakups can be."

Shawn gave a shake of his head, sure that this was going to turn awkward but refusing to let it. "You've helped more than you know. Your advice. Your house. Your Kiss The Cook mug. It's all been rather curative, actually. I couldn't have done this, gotten through this, on my own. And not just with Gus. You helped a lot."

"Well," he started and stopped with that syllable, let it drift into this probable last morning with Shawn. He started the car remotely. The engine revved, settled into a content purr. He let his eyes rove over Shawn's face, the slide of his jaw into his chin, the angle of his neck into his shoulder. Then they were looking at one another. There was a sensitive heaviness. "Someday," he started to turn away, "I might take you up on that offer."

Shawn was going to ask him what offer he was talking about, but didn't get the chance. Lassie was gone, and the car was gone, and he was left in a backyard that wasn't his. The Kiss the Cook mug raised to his lips as he took another, maybe final, sip. And only then did he remember the mug, its phrase, its suggestion. Shawn was sorry that he wasn't going to linger. He never did get to cook, really, for the two of them.

When Carlton got home that evening, not having heard from Shawn all day, his mood went from dour to depressed at the emptiness of the house. It was obvious that Shawn wasn't there and wasn't coming back. The cleanliness bespoke it. The books were gone from the coffee table. The house had an aroma of vinegar and vacuum. The towels were fresh in the bathroom. The hand towel in the kitchen was clean and straight over the oven door handle. The guest room smelled of freshly laundered bed sheets. The bundle of socks was no longer perpetually strangled by the dresser drawer. Carlton thumbed the drawer open, found it void of all cloth, not just socks. He kicked it shut, hands jetted into the pockets of his best trousers. Shawn wasn't just absent—he was gone. Gone. Gone.

In the kitchen, he'd just decided on a cup of tea too soothe his nerves after a boring, stifling, tense kind of day, when he opened the cupboard for a mug and found the Kiss the Cook phrase staring back at him. Without thinking, he plucked the offending mug from the cupboard and hastened it to meet its demise on the kitchen floor. The handle snapped off. A chip formed in its lip, and another piece dislodged itself from the side and scurried, afraid, under the stove. Carlton picked up the pieces, binned them, and no longer wanted a cup of tea. He didn't know what he wanted.

On the couch, he fiddled with the remote until the television came on. With some effort, he found something he needed but not something he knew he wanted: the jazz station that Shawn had listened to while cleaning yesterday. Carlton let it play, working on a new soundtrack to his suddenly odd little life.


	13. He Loved Flowers

**XIII. He Loved Flowers**

The last thing Shawn wanted to do was talk to Brooke in a vis-a-vis situation. Yet, if he'd garnered one piece of knowledge from the whole terrible, mercifully clean, breakup with Adrian, it was a satisfying sensation that his maturity level was much higher than he'd recently supposed. Nothing like a breakup to make you feel like the bigger person—or, perhaps, as in fits at 3 AM—like a tiny, tiny, insignificant person wandering aimlessly in a great big world suddenly bereft of love.

Brooke and Shawn had always gotten along well. In the last year, they'd bonded over the most peculiar things. Their total distrust of people who read _Alice in Wonderland_ and preferred it to _Alice Through the Looking-Glass_. The often unnoticed relaxation that came with watching cooking shows ("You should write something about that, Shawn," to which the addressed replied, "Yes, damn it, Brooke, I should, shouldn't I!" and to which he challenged himself to live up to the expectation of this 'should' by thus doing). And their always adorable debate on how many movies Johnny Depp and Tim Burton had made together, without actually bothering to look it up. Adrian kept trying to tell them the answer, and Shawn would then reply, with undue but humorous aggression: "None of your sass, babe!" And he and Brooke would laugh, and Adrian would laugh, then there'd be tea—

He might've made up that tea bit.

In truth, he needn't be in good humor or dour spirits to see Brooke. She met him at Mee Mee's at the appointed time. He'd arranged to have his things moved back in that day, from a storage unit that he and Adrian had been sharing. Everything in the apartment was a mess, turned this way and that, boxes helter-skelter, the mattress still tipped on its side along a wall discolored where a framed movie poster used to be. Brooke offered to help put it in order. Shawn declined.

"You look too tidy," he told her, smiling a little to transform the tension. Brooke's honey-tinted brown tresses tumbled past the maroon shoulders of a suit coat, tresses pulled away from her face in soft puffs that widened her small-boned features. There was a slight resemblance to Adrian, just the shape of the eyes, the lay of the chin, but nothing blatant. It was the memories that hit him more. "I don't want you to get dirtied up in this rat trap."

To that, Brooke endeavored to laugh, finding the task too difficult. She looked abashed. "It's true, we couldn't find the mouse you mentioned, so it might still be in here. Otherwise, the ceiling's been redone, and the floor has been refinished. We didn't get around to painting, obviously, before you called and asked for the place back." She rushed on before any mention of apologies could pass her lips. "We did get the bathroom painted. If you want the walls done, we can have the painters come while you're gone. At work. Or wherever."

Shawn examined the marks on the walls, the brighter rectangles done by time. "I wouldn't know where to hang my artwork if the walls didn't tell me where to put them."

"It's good to have a map for that sort of thing. So, um," she had nothing else to say, and Shawn wasn't going to torture them any longer, "I guess I'll get out of your hair. If you're sure you don't want any help."

"No, I'm fine," he replied, too quietly to be anything but real. He held the door open for her, and watched her take two steps away before stopping.

"Um," she muttered again, turning back. From her voluminous shoulder bag, she brought out a conspicuous white envelope misshaped with its unknown contents. She dropped it in his upturned palm, happy to be rid of it. "It's from Adrian. He told me to give it to you."

Shawn could only imagine what it contained. Papers, maybe. The inevitable papers he'd been waiting for the last week. It didn't feel like papers when he squished it with his fingers. His heart beat rapidly, and his breath turned quick, shallow, full of despair. Whatever it was, he didn't want it. Whatever it was, he didn't want to think about it being something that Adrian had touched. He set it on the top of a dresser, left it there, turned back to Brooke. His thank-you was muted and too vulnerable. He accepted her quick hug, her accelerated departure.

After the door shut, Shawn faced the strangeness of his old land. Why had he decided that this was the best course of action? Because it was easy? Because he had to talk to Brooke, Adrian's sister, in order to accomplish it? He pondered what she might tell Adrian about Shawn Spencer, if the two of them talked about it at all. Would Adrian even ask how Shawn had looked? Shawn had thought about asking Brooke how Adrian was handling things. But he didn't have to. He had a guess—an assumption. Dangerous things, assumptions. In some cases, however, they brought the mind ease that it might be incapable of creating otherwise. Adrian was likely not fine, but was acting stoic, dispassionate, detached from the reaction—because he was So Sure That He Was Right.

And he wasn't right. And Shawn knew it. He was not capable of those awful, awful things. And to hell with anyone who thought he was, especially someone that he had loved as hard as he'd loved Adrian.

He slapped a palm across the waiting envelope. It wasn't the dreaded papers inside at all, but a couple hundred-dollar bills and a teller's check.

Shawn felt his back hit the wall, slithering downward until he was seated on the floor. Deflated, he stayed motionless for seconds strung into minutes. It was a relief to know he'd go on breathing unconsciously, without his effort; it'd be too much effort on his part to think of breathing. His chest hurt, heart breaking all over again. He thought about the house, Lassiter's house on Sunberry Lane, and the money Adrian had returned to him from their annihilated savings account. Their We're Going To Buy A House account.

Over time, his butt got tired and chilled. He started hearing the familiar noises of his apartment: traffic going up and down St. Andres Street, cars revving as they took off from the stop sign at Cook Avenue, and a subtle, really subtle background noise of a rodent grating ever-growing incisors against wood.

This wasn't where he wanted to be anymore. This was like stepping back in time, when he'd expected his life to move forward with Adrian. And that'd been wiped away. He was here month to month to month, and he couldn't see the end of it. "Welcome home, Shawn."

He had too much to do to wallow like he had the last five minutes. Yes, the money had been a shock, but at least Adrian had returned it. That was a big deal. Shawn had forgotten all about the pittance he'd donated to their savings, and the two-hundred was what he'd owed Adrian for rent that month, a month lobbed off by their abrupt disunion. It was just money—he'd be glad to have it, throw it into his own checking account that, of course, his mother having raised no fool and perhaps his father likewise, he'd never gotten rid of it even with the merging of him and Adrian. It was just money, spendable, never obsolete, always necessary. It wasn't the papers he'd been dreading. He couldn't allow their absence to give him hope.

Instead, he put the apartment together as well as he could, working until he was breathless and sore, had forgotten the time and had even forgotten why all of this had happened. In place of those forgotten things, he remembered when he moved into Mee Mee's, how he and Gus and his Dad had done it all themselves, going out to Tom Blair's Pub afterward for hard-earned _cervezas_ and pizza slathered in meat. That had been a pretty good day. Henry Spencer oozed pride, Shawn finally getting his own place again and even allowing his father to see it. And Gus had been relieved that things were, monetarily speaking, looking up for Shawn. His position at the SBPD let him use an array of talents, both inherent and learned. Gus applauded Shawn's position, though perhaps the way it'd come about, and the oddness of it—not to mention the lying—certainly stoked at Gus's compunctions. Still, best friends were like that, cheering you on against the odds.

He picked up his phone and texted Gus. "Back at M&Ms." He offered no emoji to solidify or demonstrate his feelings. He wasn't really up to it.

A box of books was unloaded next. Some paperbacks, a few from when he stayed put long enough to go to college, but most were nonfiction. One of them was his old reiki handbook. Knowing he had that workshop tomorrow, and had to pump himself up about it, he took it to his newly-made bed, left the light on, and reminded himself of the vocabulary of not-quite forgotten things from the pages of the book.

He barely got a third of the way through it when his mind teetered back to Lassie, to the house—to Lassie in the house. It was well after five-thirty. Surely Lassiter was home already, unless a big event had excited the police department. Armed with his phone, book closed on his thumb, Shawn checked to see if anyone had texted him. He could fade away into words and his own mind, not hear any alert dings or chimes. Nothing had come. His thumb hovered over the keyboard, wondering what he should say. A small but meaningful—and maybe true—lie came to him.

"Hey, I'm back at the laundromat. I think I forgot to water the plants before I left."

After reading it for typos, and selecting an emoji that slightly resembled a succulent, he sent it to Lassie's phone on the other side of town.

It was difficult to focus. Shawn had problems with it to begin with. Compounded with familiar but strange and unwanted surroundings, struggling to discard broken pieces of his life, and actually missing Lassie, and concentration issues abounded. He wished he'd paid to have the wireless internet hooked up again, but had believed in his own strength to go without, to crack open books and become like Buffy's Rupert Giles. He used to know all this stuff—and probably more—but it'd faded, like a new language, when he didn't need it. There was something awful and triggering about the things Adrian had said. Shawn was better than Adrian had supposed—and the sickening heaviness of betrayal burned Shawn's insides and scorched his heart, as if Adrian had thought that the last year, never said anything, kept it to himself long enough to make his venomous assumptions. Shawn concluded that bettering his life didn't mean going out and getting a college degree, or finding a 9-to-5 job, or doing anything that would make Adrian proud of him. All he had to do was take pride in himself, and that would be more than enough.

Still, there was no harm in learning a bit more. Especially this reiki business. He'd taken those workshops years ago, six months apart, under the influence of his suspicion that it was all bullshit, and he was going to find out if it was all bullshit. Much like wading through his own present wagon of crap—was he really any better than the charlatans he helped put in jail?—he was surprised to see that the bullshit actually helped people. That was all that mattered. It would never matter a whole lot to Shawn. If he were honest with himself, he'd admit that it was worth those workshops just to see the look on Lassie's face when he said, "Is there anything you don't do, Shawn Spencer?" Ah, the savoriness of palatable revenge! And something—just a little taste—of something sweeter that Shawn chose to ignore.

He looked at the dresser, the envelope with the money. Adrian. The house. The loss. Lassie's gain.

And sighed.

**-x-**

"Shawn went back to Mee Mee's," Gus proclaimed as he came into the kitchen. Cherry tomatoes and croutons tumbled in the big bowl of salad that Juliet stirred. She dropped the spoon and stared, fixedly, at his phone as he held it up. Reading the message brought it closer to her, deepened her frown.

"That's unexpected. Don't you think that's unexpected?"

"Only because it meant he had to talk to Brooke."

"Adrian's sister, that Brooke? Oh, right, she owns the place."

"Her and two others. They own a couple of properties." Gus wanted to ask Shawn how that had gone, refraining because he'd rather ask about it in person tomorrow, before they went to the reiki thing. "Shawn can do just about anything if he puts his mind to it. I never thought he'd go back to that laundromat, though." He opened the oven door, peeking inside to golden heaps in a baking dish. "I think the chicken's ready."

"If I'd known Shawn was going to be at the laundromat tonight, he could've come over and eaten with us. Unless he eats with Carlton."

"I don't think you're going to get your wish this time around." The glass lid rattled as he set it down, steamed when he revealed two chicken breasts, perfectly seasoned, in a bed of brown rice.

"Hmm, well, never say never. If the two of them keep doing anything over the last few years, it's surprising the hell out of me every chance they get."

It wasn't until they sat down at the small, round tea-like table in the dining room that Gus could sense Juliet's brain tick-tick-ticking away. Like clockworks, he could see the gears and pistons, and almost see what she was seeing.

"Whatever you're thinking—" he started to warn, but the wrinkle between her eyebrows told him it was much too late. She'd already fashioned her next scheme.

"Don't you guys have that Roku thing in the morning?"

"Reiki," corrected Gus, hurriedly cutting off a piece of chicken, "and, yes, we do. It's at 10 AM." He chewed rapidly—he hadn't eaten but a granola bar all day—and slowed and slowed his chewing as he realized what she was thinking. He'd known there was a scheme, he just hadn't realized the extent of her scheme. "Oh, no—no, no, _no_."

She knew that he knew what she was thinking. "Come on, Gus! This is for love!"

"If the two of them are in love with each other, I'll eat my shorts," he waved his fork at her, "and your best matching bra and panty set."

That got a laugh but it wasn't enough to distract her. "I didn't say they were in love. Can you imagine Lassiter in love?"

"No," Gus responded. He forced his mind into a big blank before anything popped in that he didn't want to imagine. "No, I refuse to. My brain just won't work that way. It hurts just when I try to watch a Wes Anderson film."

"Yeah, no, me either. I suppose he probably loves a different way. Some men do. Protection and guidance, that sort of thing. But with Shawn, though—"

"That's almost even worse. I don't see the world in gay goggles the way you do. Seriously. Everything we watch, you have these most outlandish ships! Including the Wes Anderson films I can't seem to make it through! I knew we shouldn't have watched anything Sherlock Holmes!"

"Hey! That's not fair! Half the world ships Sherlock and Watson! They were, like, the first slashy-ship ever!"

"What about _The Merchant of Venice_, hmm? Antonio and Bassanio?"

"Please, if we're going to go back that far, we'd have to go back pretty, pretty far."

"An astute assessment."

"Elementary, my dear Guster."

"Sherlock never said that."

"Ugh, I know! Loosen up! I know the closest he—a fictional character, by the way—ever came to saying it was in 'The Crooked Man' and blah, blah, blah!"

"Excellent deduction," Gus decided to add, chuckling warmly, a la Watson.

"Elementary," sighed Juliet. "And don't you mean adduction?" She slanted a hand through the air with undue gentleness. "No, let's not go into the adduction versus deduction thing. I want to talk about Shawn and Carlton and my impossibly possible happy shippy place!"

Gus chuckled, chewed his food, refraining from a comment. After a while, with Juliet thinking as she tapped fork tines against the side of her plate, to the point of irritation, Gus finally slapped his hand over hers, gripped it tightly.

"Why Shawn and why Lassiter? Can't you leave them alone for a little bit? Shawn just got out of this huge relationship—which I suspect is probably huger than he told us—and Lassiter's just moved into a new place. And his morals are so askew that he actually slept with his former partner. Does that make you comfortable?"

Juliet's grin brimmed with the immature. "But Shawn's like his partner now."

Gus, exacerbated, threw his face into his hands and gave a shake of his head. He fell into silent laughter that steered his next comment. "It's never going to work."

"It might. I can't picture Carlton in love, no more than I can picture Shawn making googly eyes at anything Homo sapien and animated—"

"He does seem to love his inanimate objects more than he loves people, that's for sure. You should see him when he's shopping for new pillows. And those are just pillows. I feel like I have to leave them alone in a dark room with Mary Wells playing."

"But when you start imagining the two of them together, it gets easier to see. Carlton—Shawn. Not Shawn and pillows."

Gus didn't want to see it. He wanted to not think about it. At all. His misgivings were often rubbed off with Juliet's enthusiasm. Shawn and Carlton had been getting along better, and they'd certainly spent a good deal of time together. Gus liked to think that he and Juliet had a hand in that. The monster prank they'd pulled to announce their engagement had thrown their respective partners into full cooperation with each other. Without Gus and Juliet around, they were forced to work as a pair to solve the case. It was just lucky that Juliet and Gus had designed the whole thing with the help of Chief Vick, so that it looked as though there was a real case to solve.

Gus poked at his carrots and green beans. "Is it my imagination, or do you think Chief Vick sometimes—sometimes—"

"Ships it too?" Juliet picked a crouton from the salad bowl, remembering. "Yeah, sometimes I get that idea." She decided that he'd been cantankerous enough about it, for long enough. "Well, so—will you? Tomorrow?"

They were so in-tune that they didn't even need to discuss it.

"Yeah, all right," he agreed. "I'm not sure it's going to work, but I'll do it. I'm more worried about what will happen to Shawn when the two of us do get married. I don't want him to feel left out. Especially because of Adrian."

Juliet winced into his speculation. Gus had notions about the depth of Shawn and Adrian's attachment, that it might've involved the government a little more than supposed. Juliet didn't know, either, and she refused to look it up. Pretty much anything involving the government, no matter in what state it was filed, like, say, one that welcomed gay marriage more than the current fiasco that was the state of California, well, that information was just a couple of keyboard clicks away. It seemed too nefarious, too much like personal business. Gus, however, was having trouble thinking of anything else but Shawn's welfare.

"He'll bounce back," Juliet said for about the millionth time in the last week. "He's Shawn. He always bounces back. His top is made out of rubber! His bottom is made out of springs!"

Gus cracked a gentle smile that softened the longer he looked across the table at Juliet. He hoped she was right. He hoped Shawn was as resilient as a Tigger. It was with shame that he doubted. "If Shawn gets in over his head, he'll simply run away again. That's just what he does."

"Not always."

Gus frowned, certain that he knew Shawn better than anyone. "What do you mean?"

She lifted her shoulders, gave a tight expression that he couldn't read. "He hasn't yet, has he? And, I mean, things with Adrian are bad. He is in over his head. Going through that much heartache, the old Shawn would've run off. But not this one. Not this time."

Her assessment was accurate. Shawn would've gone if he'd really wanted to. Pain like that would've driven most people mad.

"Excellent," Gus repeated.

"Elementary," Juliet replied. She scanned the table they were sitting at, the food settled on a counter out of reach. Their plates and cups barely fit on it. "I really think we should consider getting a new dining table sometime."

"I concur. We can give this one to Lassiter. It's better than the one he has."

"He doesn't have one."

"Exactly."

"Huh! Gus! That's positively elementary."

Gus stared at her.

"I took it too far, didn't I?"

"A little. But it was still cute."

"Then, I win."

**-x-**

Carlton heard his phone give off the famous, ominous first movement of Beethoven's Fifth. He scoured between the couch and his hip to find his phone, to read Shawn's message. He wanted it to be flimsy and charming and witty, an irksome Shawn-thing that he could laugh at and feel grateful that Shawn had gone.

He read the message, dimmed the phone screen, set it on his chest. He stared into space, not sure how he felt about Shawn asking about the "little pets" over the kitchen sink. Piecing out this conundrum, Lassiter finally composed a decent response.

"You can stop by sometime and check on them yourself."

Jazz played from the television set, and Carlton continued his trance while supine upon the couch.

**-x-**

Shawn set aside the reiki book at the summons from his telephone. Funny, he concluded, that they were all salves to palm-sized rectangles with glowing screens. And sci-fi writers of history thought it would be aliens and autonomous machines! Well, when it was a response from Lassie, what was he supposed to do? It left him feeling a bit too Timmy Martin for his liking.

He stared at the response, distrustful of his eyeballs, then distrustful of his ability to write a banal reply. He stuck with what he knew, sending a thumbs-up emoji. It was there for several seconds by itself before Shawn made the statement less stark.

"I'll see you tomorrow then."

The phone was tossed aside, lost in the waves of blankets and bedsheets. For some reason, the old laundromat was always five degrees cooler than the average house, including Lassie's. And his bed was harder than he remembered, firmer than the guest room bed. He smirked at a memory of sneaking into Lassie's room to test out the bed. Lassie had to sleep on rocks and bare planks, or on a cushioned donut on the floor. It was the only way Shawn could imagine Lassie sleeping at all. The bed was as soft as other beds. It curved to his shoulders and derriere as every bed did. It smelled faintly of Carlton, a mixture of aftershave, antiperspirant, with undertones of peach Snuggle, and something edible and clean, like fresh celery.

Shawn hunkered into his own pile of pillows, hoping to dispel the longing he had to sneak into Carlton's house. He had the Norton, and, in theory, he could do that, of course.

But it'd be ridiculous. Lassie had his own life. And Shawn was back in his own place. Yes, he'd rearranged the room so it wasn't exactly as it'd been, just to help detangle the past with the present. The fewer reminders of Adrian he had, the quicker he'd heal. As devastated as he'd been Saturday, as ripped up as he'd felt, it consoled and surprised, but didn't shock him, how much better he felt. He knew that the loss wouldn't kill him. He'd seen too much of death the last few years to exaggerate his suffering. It wasn't death so much as resurrection, as metamorphosis.

When his phone stayed silent, and he'd skimmed and reread the entire reiki book, he found a battered paperback from a box and tucked himself into bed with it. He'd read it before, Shelby Foote's book _Shiloh_, but hadn't dared enter any kind of discussion with Lassie about it. Shawn's copy was dogeared and smelled perpetually damp, and wasn't the nice first-edition hardcover Lassie had sitting on his bookshelf. Granted, Foote had been a bit of an oddity in the Civil War historians' world, there was that whole Nathan Bedford Forrest thing, but that didn't deter from the engagement of Shiloh. Shawn would've had more fun discussing the book's author with Lassie than the contents of the book itself. No doubt, Lassiter had opinions on Shelby Foote. Shawn tucked it away as a possible dialogue introduction. If, that is, they ever ran out of things to talk about, what with cases and dead bodies, and Gus and Jules, to talk about instead.

Shawn couldn't resist the temptation to grab his phone and communicate with someone. It couldn't be Gus and Jules. If he knew them well enough by now, and their routine, they'd be clearing the table of dinner and wondering if they should leave leftovers in the fridge for one of Shawn's inevitable Saturday afternoon appearances. He didn't have a shortage of friends, really, but he had a shortage of people that he could talk to when his mind became too much for him to handle.

**-x-**

Carlton put the book down and looked at his phone as the assonance of Beethoven's Fifth died away.

"What are you doing?"

When Carlton typed the response, it was spoken out loud, too. "Lying on the couch reading."

"Reading what?" came from Shawn seconds later.

Rather than say it was the big book of Russian poetry that had been left sitting on the table, the only book Shawn hadn't put away, Carlton opened the book and typed in a passage he'd just read.

"Distorted shadows fell  
Upon the lighted ceiling:  
Shadows of crossed arms,  
of crossed legs—  
Of crossed destiny."

**-x-**

Shawn read and reread the poem, struggling to recall it form a rusty databank. Finally, he typed within the box, "Bronsky?"

**-x-**

Carlton had stumped Shawn. Unbelievable.

"Nice guess. But it was Pasternak."

**-x-**

Shawn rubbed the end of his phone against his chin, stubble creating that soft, comfortable scratchy sound that resembled that of the mouse in the walls. The debate within raged on, as words tumbled in the forefront of his thoughts. Debate—thoughts—debate over—thoughts continued.

"Try page 124."

**-x-**

Carlton had made it another page into the book by the time Beethoven was heard again. He wondered, "Should I change Shawn's text sound to an ominous Russian composer instead?" since they seemed to be discussing Russian poetry. Shawn might know Russian—the more Carlton got to know him—it surprised that there was so much to know—the more talents and knowledge were squeezed from Shawn.

"Page 124?" he questioned aloud. He fumbled for a grip on the book that would allow him to zoom back more than a hundred pages.

It was a Pushkin poem—one of the more famous poems, of any language.

"...I loved you hopelessly and mutely,  
Now with shyness, now with jealousy being vexed;  
I loved you so sincerely, so fondly,  
Likewise may someone love you next."

Carlton took it upon himself to answer Shawn's text with a daring message. "Does that make you think of Adrian?"

**-x-**

Shawn snorted when he saw the response.

"No," he typed back, the lie making him laugh at himself, "it makes me think of the mugs that Victoria took away yesterday. And the beige chair that you're still holding on to, now out of laziness more than spite."

He waited a beat.

"Mostly the mugs, though."

**-x-**

The mugs. Carlton had forgotten all about them. He should talk to Victoria and thank her for coming to get them. As for the chair—

He lifted his eyes to it, hating it and still wanting to hold on to it to keep the hate going. He wasn't sure why. Did the hate feel good? Because she'd held something back that they could've had together—and now he was holding back on something that she wanted. He couldn't analyze his motives then. His head was full of other things: Pushkin and poetry and memories of lost college days. And missing the second presence in the house—

"I broke the kiss the cook mug today."

He didn't add a lie and say it was an accident. It hadn't been. It'd been on purpose.

"The plants are still alive," he added. "But they seem sad that you're not here."

**-x-**

"Gus?"

Gus raised his gaze to Juliet, stooped in front of him. He'd taken a seat on the very edge of the sofa cushion more than five minutes ago, perhaps as many as fifteen minutes ago, and had since fixated on the space before him.

Juliet rubbed his knee with warmth and encouragement. "Don't worry. I'm sure he'll be fine."

"But I think I'm really starting to freak out. I'm freaking out over how freaked out Shawn's going to be!"

Juliet would be lying if she said she hadn't thought of it before. It wasn't really a good time to start lying. "He'll probably be fine."

"But we're getting married! Married!"

Using the floor, Juliet sat near him, rubbed his ankle, tried to assure him with comforting gestures rather than words. Now Gus was freaking out over the marriage part, not the "what's going to happen to Shawn when his best friend gets married" bit. "Yeah, and you know what, honey? Shawn sorta knows that by now."

"Maybe we should postpone."

He was speaking nonsense. If a situation soared his anxiety beyond a level that he could cope with it, Gus spoke nonsense. Juliet never dared highlight that.

"We can talk about it tomorrow."

Tomorrow, he'd probably feel better. All of this would be behind them. There'd be no freaking out, either from Shawn or from Gus.

"I-I don't know," Gus said, rubbing the back of his neck as if several muscles decided to turn to stone. "I think I should text Shawn and tell him I can't do that reiki workshop thing tomorrow."

Which had been the scope of their scheme all along. The made-up reason for it, Gus freaking out over getting married—it was about time they had a freak-out of some sort with the wedding closing in—but the fictitious reason had become authentic.

"Let's just watch some cartoons," Juliet suggested, "and have some wine, let our minds relax, and we'll discuss it tomorrow."

Gus felt the logic in this approach. He rubbed Juliet's arms beneath his hands. "All right. Wine and cartoons it is."

"Good! I'll get the wine. Zinfandel?"

"Meh, let's do Gertie."

"Gewürztraminer it is!" Following her perfect pronunciation of the tricky-named wine, she zipped in, smooched him on the cheek, and zipped away again.

_She reminds me of a hummingbird_, he thought, struggling to lean into the cushions, let the stress and fears—entirely without foundation—drain from him as flickering bits of color took over the television screen. He wasn't going to freak out about this. He wasn't. He wasn't. It was too early before the wedding to have a good and honest freak-out. The wedding was four months away. Plenty of time to obtain that sharp-edged commitment-phobia he was sure would come upon him. Or Juliet—yet that was unlikely. As much as she reminded him of a hummingbird, she was like a brick. Stronger and tougher than he was. She built solid and true edifices. She was their anchor. She was their mastermind.

She handed him a glass of wine and sunk to the couch next to him. Her face pulled out an expression of concern. "We should've asked Carlton if he had plans tomorrow morning. What if he does and can't go?"

"First of all, we don't know that this is going to work. Second of all, I can no more imagine Carlton Lassiter having plans on a Saturday morning in May than I can picture him and Lucinda Barry together."

Her shoulder rounded into his, playful. "What about him and Shawn together?"

Gus rubbed fingertips across his brow. She was relentless. "Is this because of your undying support and adoration for Sherlock and Watson? Are Shawn and Lassiter like Sherlock and Watson?"

"I could make it work. It wouldn't be the greatest Sherlock fanfic ever, but I could do it. Sort of transpose their personalities and, well, their jobs, of course, into some sort of mystery. Oh! Oh my gosh!" She reached for a small tablet on the stand next to the couch, and unlocked it to head for a website buried in browser history. "That reminds me! I read the greatest Basil Rathbone-era Sherlock story at lunch today! I can't believe I nearly forgot to tell you about it! Let's turn on the classical music station and read it out loud together. You be Sherlock. I'll be Watson, and we'll take turns narrating!"

This is why he loved her. Stupid stuff like this. Who was he kidding? It was the stupid stuff that made all the difference.

Still, marriage was an awfully big adventure. He wasn't sure he was built of the same kind of brick and mortar that had created Juliet O'Hara. Sometimes, he just wanted to go back to Neverland.

**-x-**

When Shawn didn't text back right away, Carlton pondered alternate avenues to encourage conversation. He should just admit it: he missed having Shawn around. Admitting it was like poison. He wanted nothing to do with poison. The thought of missing Shawn around the house might be toxic, but having Shawn around the house again would be the antidote.

He tried to read another Pasternak poem, but paused in the middle of a syllable.

"Do you speak Russian?"

He hadn't even dropped the phone and only heard a blip when a response arrived.

"A few words. But no."

"What few words?"

"The usual things: Please, thanks, bye, hello, good day, things like that. Except not 'things like that' altho I could figure it out I guess if I had to."

Seconds later, more from Shawn before Carlton could finish his reply.

"Do you speak Russian?"

Former response deleted, Carlton sent a fresh answer. "No. I could understand it well, now, if I had to. But I don't think I could speak it any more. Do you speak any other language besides English?"

"You admit that I speak English? I'm flattered."

"Funny." He sent it with the laughing face that squirted tears from its eyes.

"I speak Spanish poorly and brokenly, but probably better than my current harsh self-confidence permits me to admit. Swedish and some Dutch, though I like writing them better. Also, I 'speak' ASL very well."

"ASL?"

"American Sign Language. Yes, it's a thing."

Carlton had a vague memory of Shawn being hired as an ASL interpreter for the SBPD when their usual interpreter had been on vacation, and one was needed immediately. "Yeah, I remember that now. The SBPD needed you for that and you came through."

"It's my job." A flicker of a second went by. "Sorta."

"How's things at the laundromat?"

"Boring. It smells odd. I don't remember this place smelling so oddly. At least the mouse is still hanging around. They weren't able to get rid of him. He's too smart, too talented. I'm thinking of naming him Masset. Masset the Mouse has the alliterative touch that I've come to know and love."

"Doesn't Masset play for the Cincinnati Reds?"

"I refrain from comment."

Carlton smirked. He knew he was right about that, despite Shawn's general malaise and grumblings when it came to sports. He could picture them sitting on the couch in the dark of a summer's night, watching a baseball game and cursing and cheering their teams. It might happen. Stranger things had. "Lie. You're watching baseball right now, aren't you?"

"Hardly. I have a television and a VCR but no cable."

"A VCR? Like, a real one?"

"A real one lol lassie."

"Top-loading or front-loading?"

Shawn sent a heart emoji for being asked such a nerdy question. Of course, Lassiter was older than him, old enough to know that when front-loading VCRs came around, they were all the rage. Those abysmal, titanic, cumbersome top-loaders of the day were certainly démodé.

"Front-loading," he replied. "Before you ask, I do not yet own a DVD player. I've borrowed Gus's. He didn't need it when he and Jules combined households. It was at the office, but I brought it here."

He dropped the phone in his lap, a moment of agony returned to fight through.

"Adrian and I did that," he typed for no apparent reason. "Went through our things, put my duplicates in storage, and some things of mine were kept at the apartment but not many. I suppose you did that too."

"Yeah. It sucks. I'm sorry."

"That's okay. I find it helps if I hear Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in my head when I fight through one of these painful moments. Like something from Excalibur."

"Have you ever read that poem?"

"The original Carmina Burana from 1230 AD?"

"Then you have?"

"No," Shawn said. "Well. Maybe once."

"Fate strikes down the strong—everyone weep with me!"

"Is that a line from it, or are you exploring feelings with me through the safety and isolation of text messages?"

"Both."

"Good deal. Carry on."

"Like the moon, you are changeable—ever waxing, ever waning."

"That'd be me. I'm in a waning phase right now."

"Shadowed and veiled, you plague me too… I should make a phone call. Goodnight Shawn."

"Goodnight Pooch."

"Don't call me that."

"Sorry... it slipped out."

Lassiter, trying to bring more levity to the joyful conversation, sent the dog emoji for the heck of it. Shawn sent back a heart—because that was the sort of thing that Shawn got away with.


	14. Any Trickle of Pity

**XIV. Any Trickle of Pity**

_But you can read my mind, can't you…_

In Shawn's dream, it echoed to him as a statement. No question mark hung at the back of the words—no accusations he couldn't handle. No noise as soft as a gentle lie, or even a prodding of a forefinger into the recesses of his life. Awake, though, a week ago, he'd heard it from Adrian's mouth. And word by word fell as stab wounds into him—rounded off at the end. As a question. _But you can read my mind, can't you? _

Beneath the formless shapes of blankets doused in the cool blue light, Shawn gripped what he could. A psychic read someone's life. A clairvoyant read someone's present moment, dead or alive. And a medium saw ghosts, tumbled in light and dark, danced with the dead. But he was a psychic, right, and pirouetted his way through the now. _On your toes, Shawn_.

_Be on your toes. You're not a clairvoyant. You don't know what's around the corner. You only know, supposedly, what's in my head_.

He shoved his head under the pillow. The fluff and jersey knit winnowed with mild success the noise of Adrian's doubts and wishes for assimilation. He wanted Shawn in the present, not a fish breathing for clues. A clairvoyant, a psychic, a medium—what do they have in common? They're criticized for being frauds. They're _all frauds_.

It was unknown, now that he was in the now, whether Adrian had ever actually said this. Shawn was too disoriented to be sure. What nightmare was he trying to escape from? What was real history? What were all those terrible things that Adrian had actually said?

What would a medium read from the ghost of their relationship?

Shawn imagined, not the first time in his life, that ghost of a dead, important thing in his life, as a little girl, about six. Carrying around a mysterious box of carved gold with marble inlays. And the inlays would mutate and move, form the shape of a serpent that breathed ruby-stone fire. The fire would go round and round the box, wind up at the end of the serpents emerald-tipped tail. In his intuitive imagination, his imaginal realm, she said, "I told you not to trust it." She smiled. She turned in white patent-leather shoes with buckles, in a floral dress of lavender, and long, reddish braids tied at the ends with fat, shiny white ribbon. "I told you," she said, back to him now. "Told you. I told you. Never trust the serpent."

It was not the first time he'd formed her from the death of love, with anyone, or even with Adrian. It was how he dealt. He formed her into a thing. Manifested her from the darkest points of his imagination as a creature that took his secrets, his hurts, his anguishes, and kept them away. Until when, until what? His death, he supposed. The ultimate nothing. Then he could deal with it through the vapid endlessness: no time, no demands, just an understanding of what he'd been, what he'd done. While he didn't know death—he was no medium—he knew pain. And while he didn't consider spirituality a really-real thing, he knew that the incredible pains he'd faced sort of broke him apart. Sort of left pieces of his soul behind in that moment, in that short span of a few hours when Adrian's opinion dissolved and shattered and destroyed them. Part of him was still back there, still floating around in that moment of his distorted story. Like a ghost a medium couldn't touch, see, smell, or swindle someone into a belief of its existence.

Shawn reached into the dark in front of him. At a slap at the remote light switch, the bulb in the bedside lamp rushed to dispel the darkest corners. And he was really-real again. The girl with the twin braids, the carved gold box, the secrets of serpents, was vanquished—for a time. If he needed her again, she would return. He thought of her as Pandora. She held his box of personal hells. But there was one thing people tended to forget, or plain not know, about Pandora: She was the first mortal woman.

And it wouldn't have been a box at all that she carried, but a jar. However, that was nitpicking his own interpretation of a demigod, so, he yawned instead and tried to face the day.

Waking at Mee Mee's was odd. He expected to see goddesses frolicking in Grecian ware, and Hesiod in the corner taking notes:

_And then Shawnus Spencerius woke to find himself  
__Tied in knots and longing burning from internal fires;  
__He said to the shadows not to hurt him, for all was foul;  
__He asked for the light around him to float him above  
__His present strife. _

Or some such. It'd been a while since he'd read any Hesiod. He had a book around somewhere—and the thought made him groan at himself. Maybe he really was like Rupert Giles from _Buffy_. If he didn't have this or that fact memorized, it was in a book within his grasp.

He brushed his teeth, took a shower. He moved with muscle memory. It was as though he'd never left. Everything that'd happened had slipped into the unknown chasm between Past and Past—into a crater where he could lid it, and keep it. He could ask Pandora to keep it in her jar with all that humanity had left: the final gift that never escaped when evil was unleashed, the final gift of hope.

His clothes for the morning were comfortable. Loose jeans he could move around in without worrying that they'd fall past his butt. He had to put a belt on, as much as he hated them. He hadn't eaten a whole lot, and not very well, and most of his clothes were a little loose in areas where they'd been less loose before. On purpose, to keep Gus from asking questions, and anyone else he might run into, he put on a shirt that was too large for him, and a hoodie over that. From what he recalled of reiki workshops, and reiki in general, it was better to dress in layers. While it wasn't uncommon for a practitioner's hands to stay cool, or even turn cold, while using reiki, it was far more probable that he would become too hot. He didn't know. He hadn't done it in ages.

He forgot what time the event started. Wouldn't he have that written down somewhere? In his phone, maybe? But he checked, and it wasn't there. He thought about texting Gus, it was after eight and Gus would undoubtedly be awake, but decided he could find out on his own. He didn't want to deal with a lot of questions this morning. _How are you?_ suddenly became a valid Harvard essay, not the simple response that he was used to giving, that Gus was used to hearing. _How are you?_ complicated everything. For a second, Shawn imagined Pandora again, the serpent sliding around the outside of the box—although it had now slightly morphed into a jar-like box, if that was possible, to make his imagination more historically accurate.

"Effing perfectionist," he swore at himself.

How had he become like that, anyway? He sat on the end of the bed, trying to find the website for the massage parlor. He used to be able to let things go, not take things so seriously, including his talents. Perhaps it was too many talents that had gotten the better of his ego, and being unable to master his own life, and create one single talent that propelled him to success in adulthood, that caused his confidence issues. So, when things went right, when he was good at something, he focused too intently upon it. But wasn't it that sort of dedication that provided the SPBD with answers to murders, burglaries, and who'd eaten Dobson's leftover spaghetti right out of the break room fridge? These were not unimportant things. Especially that spaghetti part—Mike's spaghetti was a thing of wonder, and even the leftovers were masterpieces of cuisine. Shawn might've stolen it himself if he'd known it was in there. Turned out it was no one else but Mike himself, anyway, and didn't tell his police officer boyfriend anything about it.

But that really wasn't the point.

Shawn found the website, found the link to the workshop that morning, and was reminded that it began at ten. That was early for a workshop on a Saturday. What had he been thinking? But the dead body in holding had roped up his thoughts as of late. And it was nice to have something else to think about besides his own broken things.

He saw Pandora dropping the box until it shattered—gold shards turned into shafts of light, and a serpent slithered from the light away. She waved a hand, watching him, and the box reformed. The serpent was gone.

"Did you really need him anymore?" she asked. "I told you not to trust him. But I have your curses in here." She looked down at the box, and her brown eyes went back to him. "Hope devours them."

That was good to hear.

His head jerked up at a knock from somewhere close-by. He was surprised to find he'd dozed, woke up to the knocking, a silhouette behind the distorted glass of the door. There was street noise and soft apartment noise, and his feet, still bare, across the floor. He turned the handle of the door, expecting Gus, finding Lassiter.

"Hi," Shawn said, eyebrows going up. "What are you—"

"Gus isn't coming." Lassiter shimmied himself between Shawn and the door to get inside. He turned around—it looked the same, in a way—and he resented it, too. Shawn was in front of him, mostly dressed, oddly dressed. He handed him a small coffee. "Is that what you're wearing?"

"My tang and matching trousers are in the dry cleaners."

"That's ironic," Carlton commented, finally realizing that Shawn was making a joke, "and also not true. Gotcha. I'm here to take his place." He hoped that Shawn would be so sleepy, or sleep-deprived, or depressed—well, no, maybe not that—to ask a lot of questions. Gus said he would explain to Shawn later, and Carlton planned to hold him to it. Thankful that Shawn just sipped his coffee, then handed it back to him, Lassiter watched Shawn's bare feet head to the back corner of the apartment. "I put a lot of cream and sugar in this. Too much?"

"No, it's delicious. It's Platypus Park, isn't it?"

"Is there any other coffee? I got you the light roast. Figured you could use more caffeine."

"I would never doubt your coffee-selection abilities. You know that." Shawn found socks to put on. His feet were cold. All of him was a little cold. "Is it cold outside or something?"

"No, it's about fifty-five. It's going to be in the low sixties today. You'll warm up when we get going."

"It doesn't start until ten, Lass."

"I want to go to breakfast." This was not a question. It was stuck somewhere between an offer and a command.

"Only in the sixties?" Shawn chose that to comment on, rather than Lassie requisitioning him for a breakfast date.

Lassiter shrugged. "We could go stand by the ocean so you'd feel like it was colder."

"We could," Shawn said, slipping his feet into shoes. Was it him, or was this odd? Lassiter watching him put shoes on, in his own apartment. They'd done it at the house a lot, sure, but this was different. It wasn't the house. It was unsettling to feel out of place at his own apartment. He decided to keep up with the mayhem, and see how much he could get away with, and how much he could create before Carlton noticed. "If you wanted to take me to breakfast, you should've had me spend the night at your place again."

He passed by Lassie with an elbow to his side, a wink and a randy tiger purr. His wallet was on the top of the dresser. He remembered the money from Adrian, and, in a flash of organization, he grabbed it. Maybe he could stop at the bank and make a deposit.

Lassiter watched as Shawn grabbed a conspicuous white envelope from the dresser. It was relatively flat, but bent in weird ways, as if it'd once held something larger, or had been carried around in the tight quarters of a backpack or pocketbook for a long period of time. What could it be? But his instincts, flaring in the presence of Shawn that morning, told him not to ask. It was likely connected with Adrian.

As Shawn zipped the hoodie, not sure what to expect when he stepped outside, he asked Lassiter the casual query, "How'd you sleep?"

"I felt like I clawed at walls pasted with Russian poetry all night."

"H'mm, interesting."

And that didn't really answer the question. Shawn tumbled his way into the oversized seats of Lassiter's car. The last whoosh of California morning air was overtaken by the smell of the vehicle, partly Lassie, whatever that was, and the coffee that rested in cupholders. The Crown Vic had enough cup holders to please. Carlton was oddly attached to his car. Perhaps because they already knew that Ford was no longer going to make the Crown Victoria, and in the future he'd have to break in a new kind of car. With that kind of engine, though? Shawn wasn't even sure—he didn't pretend to know a lot about cars, but he knew when Lassie was showing him a peek of insight mixed with Keep Out signs. Plenty of those between them. It was the way Carlton had spoken it that elevated Shawn's awareness. Had it been spoken softly, Shawn would've thought it was a compliment. The two of them had been texting about Russian poetry prior to their respective bedtimes. Carlton could've easily meant it as a flirtation, if Carlton were that sort of person, and if Shawn were living in a land of monsters.

"So," he cleared his throat, "you didn't sleep well."

"I was up a lot. You?"

"Same," he said. He did wake up a lot. Too hot, too cold. "New bed—well, old bed, really—new room—old room. You get the idea."

"I understand. It must be weird being back there after all that's happened."

Or didn't happen, really. Shawn did not get what he'd wanted, what he thought he'd be able to have. But he was feeling cynical and unfinished. Of course he wouldn't have found true love with someone from Ventura, someone he met on a fluke trip to a Vons. He never shopped at Vons, and he never shopped at Vons in Ventura. And yet, for about a year, his whole life had been in Ventura. And for about a year, all he breathed was the life he and Adrian had formed. And now it was back to what he'd known before the dreamy interlude. The dream was over. And it was time to break up the nightmare, too. But how? He couldn't just snap out of it. He couldn't expect to wake up, Pandora lingering at the end of his dream, and know that his heart was a whole and usable thing again.

He considered the lost portion of his soul lingering in the dregs of last Saturday. It'd drift around there for a while. It may never find its way back to him. It might be there forever.

"Yeah, it sucks," Shawn admitted, wondering if his hair looked okay. He really needed a haircut. Wouldn't it make him feel like he was getting on with things? He could go see Chris, his haircare guru at Salons by Mick. Now that he had a spare $1200 lying around, luxuries like haircuts and breakfast with Lassie wouldn't crunch his bank account. In the mirror, his hair looked all right, and he put the visor back up. "How did you and Victoria meet?"

"In college." He didn't shift uncomfortably in his chair at this sudden line of questioning, but his hand did tighten on the steering wheel. Shawn made a groan of acceptance. "She was a friend of a—another friend of mine."

Could that be the Arturo person whose signature was in a lot of Lassiter's Russian poetry books? Shawn supposed it was possible. They must've been roommates.

"How did you meet Adrian?"

Shawn liked the way Lassie phrased it, as if Shawn had been the one who'd gone out of his way to meet Adrian Harris-Collins. It hadn't happened that way. It was as though lightning had struck the two of them at the same time. At a grocery store neither of them shopped at regularly, talking to people that they did not know. "At a grocery store." Shawn sucked in a breath and could feel the burn and ache of sorrow in his face, tingle his nose. "At a Vons. Adrian was buying a pineapple. Going to a cookout—a graduation party for one of his cousins. He has so many cousins. Do you know how many I have?"

"Two?" Lassiter ventured, preferring to talk about cousins, not Adrian. A quick glance at Shawn suggested he'd chosen wisely. Shawn's nose was a little red at the end, and his eyes more watery than usual. Lassiter could've told himself that it was because Shawn had just yawned, but he hadn't seen it, and the only time Shawn opened his mouth was to answer the question and say Adrian's name. "I have two. More second-cousins, though."

"Yeah, same here. My mom's family has this big farm out in Indiana. Used to see the cousins a lot out there. Now it's just Uncle Fenz and some horses."

"You have an uncle," Carlton paused, not sure if he was excited or surprised, "who lives on a farm in Hicksville, Indiana, and has horses? Real horses?"

"Well, it's not a carousel, Lassie. And it's not Hicksville. It's Valgen, Indiana. Sorta south of Columbus, but you gotta veer off to the right a little. It's southern Indiana." He was feeling a little cheered up thinking about the old house, the wild lands beyond the pastures, and shooting tin cans off the fence like he and the cousins used to do. They got mad at him for being better at it. He used his fake Scottish brogue, saying, "That's my mum's side of the family—Scots, they are."

Lassiter didn't know why he found it so funny, but started chuckling. He turned the car left to head into the restaurant's parking lot. "Stop—they don't really sound like that, do they?"

"No," Shawn went on with the accent, "but they might've done at one point."

"Stop," Carlton said, still chuckling. He flung the car into Park and turned off the ignition, just as Shawn decided to recite Pasternak in Scots.

Shawn stopped when Lassie finally touched his stomach, as if the laughter and happiness started to hurt his insides. His footsteps dulled a little as he saw where they were. His accent went with the comedy about Scots and Russians and farmers to the very real hilarity of their breakfast destination. "An IHOP? You brought me to an IHOP? Lassie, you big romantic."

He seemed to know where they were all at once. He'd thought he'd gotten lost back in Ventura, but he knew he wasn't that far from the Public Market, and a couple of blocks away was the Mission Street ice cream place that Woody had given him a coupon for. A dollar off an order, right? That was fifty cents off two items. Maybe he could request a stop there after the reiki workshop—and, hopefully, a step towards solving the mysterious identification of the body.

Lassiter did nothing to follow-up the comment but open the door for Shawn. There wasn't much of a wait for seating, it was pretty early, and they got a prime spot by a window at a table set for two.

Shawn yawned as he ordered coffee from the host. As she went off to perform the easy task of two coffees, Shawn rubbed an eye, using his other to look at Lassie. "Should've snuck back into your house last night. I might've slept better."

"I might've invited you," Carlton said, "if I knew you were going back to Mee Mee's."

Shawn realized, with his mouth slightly agape, that he hadn't explained. He shut his mouth, studied the menu without seeing it. "I messed that up, didn't I? And what's going on with Gus? Why isn't he coming?"

In olden days, say, last week, Carlton might've prevaricated, or he might've relished telling Shawn the truth and snapping the promise he'd made, involuntarily, with Gus. Now, though, his promise to Gus had been more forthcoming, and very true, a promise between friends. Carlton didn't want to step all over that. "Gus said he'd tell you—and he will. Just give him time."

"Is he all right, did something happen?"

"Shawn," Carlton insisted, "I'm not going to say anything, so don't even try. Now, what do you want? I'm buying."

"Guilty conscience," Shawn uttered below his breath.

Carlton pretended not to hear. Shawn would realize, later, when he talked to Gus, what had happened. And that comment would be forgotten. Along with giving O'Hara a lot of extra patience while she dealt with wedding stuff, and had basically come down with something Shawn had called "wedding brain," he had to give a lot of slack to Gus, and dish most of it upon Shawn. He remembered what he was like during his breakups, even, most particularly, the ones Shawn didn't know about.

Shawn couldn't study the menu. When the coffee appeared on the table, he said thanks to the host and automatically picked out sugar packets for himself, and tossed two at Lassie. "Is this Gus thing—is this about me?"

Lassiter's mouth tightened, and his menu dropped. "You know, not everything in the world is about you."

"Why not?" Shawn asked, smirking to show he wasn't serious. "Come on, I know it's not. But I've been sort of high-maintenance lately," he paused, as if inviting Carlton to add a sarcastic _What do you mean, lately? _but nothing came, "and I thought maybe he just needed a break. From me."

Carlton wondered if that was how it started, the split between Shawn and Adrian. One of them saying that it'd be nice to take a break from each other. Maybe insist on separate vacations—he and Victoria had done that three times—and then it snowballed and balled and balled, until their world became winter without end. He cleared his throat and stirred his coffee. "Uh—no—that isn't it. You weren't mentioned, except when he asked if I would do this for you instead of him. He seemed genuinely concerned that you wouldn't go if someone didn't go with you."

"He knows me too well. I would rather have stayed at home, stared at the walls. Read about Pandora."

"Pandora?"

Shawn waved a hand. "Ask me again later. As long as he's okay."

"I'm gravitating toward the original pancakes. I don't know if I want anything frilly."

Shawn brought out his phone and wanted to text Gus—wanted to text something—comforting words, a hello, a message to let him know that Lassiter was here and everything was okay. He settled for something like that, and mentioned IHOP. He had to get in there somehow that they were eating breakfast at an IHOP.

Gus texted back: "Which one? The one in town?"

"Yeah," Shawn sent back, before Lassie started throwing him sidelong glances of obvious disapproval. He texted again, "Can't talk. Evil eye from my date. TTYL and hugs for Jules." A text from his dad just popped up, but it was ignored. He made show of putting the phone in the front pocket of his faded green hoodie. "Frilly?" Shawn echoed a word he remembered Lassie using. Frilly wasn't really a word Lassie _should _be using. "Look, Carlton," he resorted to his old trick of saying the name only when it imparted scathing seriousness, but facetiously, "do you have any idea what you're getting yourself into? These are _reiki _people."

"But they're still people. I was reading about reiki last night before I went to sleep. Maybe that's why I had strange dreams," he added aside. "It's no wonder you were drawn to studying it, Spencer. It's a pseudoscience. You're _built _of pseudoscience, aren't you? Your bones are made of clairvoyance. Your heart is a medium."

The pressure of the inquiry only catapulted Shawn back to his dreams, the hazy ending tangles of them. When the briars and thorns of Adrian's cold words lashed out at him through the ethereal realms of sleep. "They're going to eat you alive, Lass. These are _lightworkers_. I don't think there's anything more opposite in the world, in this nation, in this _universe_, than _you _and a lightworker."

Carlton rebuffed the threat. "Is that why we don't get along, you and I? You're a lightworker, right." He widened his eyes and made spacey motions with his hands. "Oooh, one of them!"

At that, Shawn snickered. It was getting kind of ridiculous. "Fine, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Anyway," Carlton went back to his menu, now fearful that Shawn, who hadn't but glimpsed at the menu, wouldn't eat; there was more than one reason he'd asked Shawn to come with him, and it had to do with that belt at Shawn's waist being drawn one hole past the dented leather, "I told you, I've had this done before. A few times. And I think I understand enough of it to greatly limit the amount of embarrassment that might befall me."

Shawn nodded, sagely, and sipped his coffee. It had cooled enough for him to gulp it. By the time the server appeared, Shawn was ready for a refill, and they were ready to order. Carlton was relieved that he wasn't the only one getting food. Shawn wanted his pancakes with fruit, and Lassiter ordered plain pancakes with proteins on the side. When the server departed, Shawn still hopeful for a quick coffee refill, Lassiter set his keen gaze upon Shawn. It was time to size up how he was _really _feeling. Shawn had elected to go back to the laundromat, of course, but what did that entail? He blurted out a question in the fashion of an interrogation, without stopping himself.

"Did you have to see Brooke?"

Shawn gaped at him, more startled to find that Lassie remembered her name than by the question itself. He was a detective, after all. "Skills so sharp, Lassie! You knew I'd have to see if her if chose to go back there. And you were right. I did. It was fine," he said hurriedly, with an ambiance of finality about it, "not really awkward at all."

"Did you ask her how Adrian is?"

"No," Shawn said quietly. "I thought about it—but no."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to know."

There was more to that. Carlton dug a little deeper. "Because you don't want to know if he's handling it fine, or if he's as messed up as you are?"

"What would be the point of knowing the answer? There isn't a scenario that makes me feel better." Shawn looked at him squarely. "Do you really think there's a scenario that's going to make me feel better?"

Carlton listed, rapidly unsure of himself. "If you find out who the body is. And if you start wondering why you're so miserable because of him." He stalled a second, unsure even when witnessed how curious and invested Shawn was in what he was saying. "Why do you want to waste your energy beating yourself up for something that went wrong? I've seen you make mistakes, Spencer. A lot of them. You always bounce back."

"And that's the problem, isn't it?" Shawn threw in.

There was tense quiet at the table while someone uniformed refilled Shawn's mug, and Lassiter waived his chance for another.

"The problem is," Shawn began again, "that when you bounce back and bounce back and bounce back, everyone takes for granted that the next thing that comes along that destroys you will just see you bouncing back again in a day or two—a jolly joke or two later, and poof, Shawn is back to normal. It's not like that. And don't pretend you think it is with this. It isn't. And it's going to take more than a case, more than my twelve hundred dollars back, and more than me moving into that place again to wipe it all out of my memory!"

His voice got a little loud with passion and conviction. No one around them noticed. Lassiter, cool and unaffected, however only outwardly, gave a gentle wince at Shawn.

"What did he do?"

"I don't want to talk about it," griped Shawn. He stirred another packet of sugar into his coffee. He was glad for its aroma, keeping his mind from going sideways—back to lies and manipulations, sadness and forgiveness, and all the way back to Pandora.

Carlton figured that Adrian had insulted Shawn somehow—hurt him, hurt him tremendously. The only way Shawn could be hurt was by bruising his ego, and Carlton was too near-sighted to realize there were other ways. He went fishing, it was what he did. "Did he cheat on you?"

"No," Shawn said promptly, then less speedily, "I-I don't know. Maybe—but that isn't—it had nothing to do with it. Did you cheat on Victoria?"

With the coffee mug to his mouth, he'd stopped himself just in time. "No," he replied, steadily, with enough conviction that even a damaged, angry Shawn, wanting to prick him with needles, too, found utterly incontrovertible.

Shawn didn't know if Adrian had ever wandered. Probably—in the beginning. That would've been acceptable. They weren't really dating, and certainly not being exclusive. It wasn't until their life flipped around, that they realized what they were doing, that dating anyone else became impossible. If it had been acceptable in the beginning, then it wasn't cheating. Shawn would've expected Adrian to date others.

But he gave a shake of his head. It wasn't a puzzle worth figuring out anymore. All of it was over. He was left at an IHOP on a Saturday morning with Lassiter, and the two of them working on a case together. He suddenly snickered.

"Just remembering when Gus and Jules got us working together on that whole sea monster thing."

Carlton was able to see it in as much a favorable light as Shawn and the rest of them. "That part when it chased you through the woods—"

The two broke into faint laughter.

"That really was hilarious," Shawn said, "even if I was absolutely scared shitless."

"It showed," Carlton replied with a little nod, his smile laced with this iconic moment of joy. "I'm sorry," he began, "that Gus isn't here. We don't always work well together, but sometimes we know what we're doing. I'll be me. You be you. That seems to work best. Do you have any ideas about who this guy is?"

"No," Shawn answered, unsure who was playing the psychic. Lassiter had picked up on his thoughts very well, and why he'd even thought of the sea-monster prank in the first place. It was this unprecedented union of their minds that brought it on. "Only that he's upper middle class, maybe upper class. He works, though, or has a lot of hobbies. He might have a hobby that turned into a career. And wherever he's from," he concluded, "his family isn't missing him."

Carlton had expected him to say the opposite, until he realized why. "No one's put out a missing person's report meeting his description."

"So you say."

Carlton had inadvertently given away that information. "Well, I didn't look yet this morning," he retorted. He languished and heated as Shawn rose his eyebrows at him, in that very Shawn-like way that wasn't completely understood. As the food arrived, Carlton settled them onto a different topic. "How long have you known this reiki stuff?"

"Since 1999."

Carlton almost choked on his first bite of pancake. "What? But you were just—"

"Twenty-three. Or thereabouts."

"How'd you hear about it?"

"Another class I was taking was in the same building as some of the continuing education classes."

"What class were you taking?"

"A small business class." Shawn wasn't sure what Lassie would think of that, so he continued. "I thought reiki sounded like a bunch of garbage, and, naturally, I was drawn right to it."

"Where were you?" He knew slices of Shawn's history—the more extended stays in certain states, cities, and even countries. He'd spent a lot of time in Canada and a little bit of time in Sinaloa, Mexico.

"Texas," Shawn chirped.

That had not been in Carlton's known Shawn Lived Here list. Shawn was perfectly aware that Carlton had such a list, and explained the absence of Texas.

"I was still a California resident. Still with my home address—where my dad lives now. I left Texas after I took the second reiki course."

He didn't supply where he went from there, and Lassie didn't ask. Just as well. Shawn couldn't exactly remember if it was Florida after that, or if it was one of his trips to Canada. He'd done theater a lot prior to the stay in Texas, and being there was a quiet and more peaceful time in his young life. It was the time he started to regret the choices he'd made, and one of only two times he regretted not being able to go into law enforcement. The other was when his grandfather, on his mom's side, passed away. He'd been a captain in the sheriff's department—and Shawn felt a little depressed at the strangeness of his life. He'd lived more than anyone else had, an aspect that he enjoyed for himself, but that others, including Adrian, and perhaps Lassie, found disturbing. Adrian thought Shawn was running from something. Lassie probably just thought he was running—and never going to stop.

Carlton had one more question. "What can I expect from today, do you think?"

"From the workshop—or after we're done with breakfast and you politely invite me back to your place, but I—"

"From the workshop," Lassiter interjected, growing embarrassed.

Shawn studied him, grateful for the touch of humility that graced Lassie's cheeks in a faint coat of pink. "There's really no way I can answer that question, not as your date, not as your friend, not as a lightworker. If you wish to obtain wisdom, don't look for it, Lassie; simply watch for it, and it will be there for you. But you will obviously have to join the Jedi Order. That's just sort of a given."


	15. Don't Waste the Fairy Dust

**XV. Don't Waste the Fairy Dust**

Carlton had to admit to himself, definitely not aloud, that he was a little intimidated and slightly nervous when they entered the For Keeps massage parlor. Was there really an _Order _he had to join to be sanctioned as a visitor? Probably not, but a twinge in his gut told him not to trust any of this. After all, there was no scientific evidence that said energy healing arts did what they claimed. Then again, he glanced at Shawn, studies were often slanted one way or another: setting out with skepticism, ending up with skepticism. And they never saw Shawn Spencer solve a crime, psychic, lightworker, parlor trick magician, or what-have-you.

No one was in the front entrance when they entered together. From a nearby room, beyond potted plants and a beautiful, five-foot tall fountain, water tinkling lightly, came the sound of human chatter. Harmonizing voices blended with serene music floating around from an unidentifiable source. Carlton's nerves began to settle. The door opening and closing must've set off a chime nearby, absent in Carlton's ears, but from the distant room of human chatter came a rather pretty little fellow. He reminded Carlton of Puck or Peter Pan. He was small of frame, no bigger than five-five, with dark hair and dark eyes, his features smooth and a lovely cross between Asian and Hispanic. He did not glance at Lassiter, which was just as well, Carlton then afraid that his awareness would give him away, but let his huge grin envelope Shawn.

"Hello, Frederic! Welcome, on this beautiful morning!"

Shawn suddenly forgot it was cold outside, and it really wasn't a beautiful morning. A little odd, maybe. If he'd dreamed about this scenario at all, and he had, just momentarily, it was not Lassie standing with him but Gus. And he'd let himself forget that Will existed. A good detective on top of his game would've looked at the parlor's website and read all about the employees. Shawn hadn't done this. No murder had been committed. No suspects needed to be identified from the throngs of possibilities. All he had to do was find out who The Body was. He sent himself into a bow with his hands clasped at his heart. "Namaste, Will."

Frederic, in this scenario, was very likely Shawn. He went through a series of funky aliases while following his visions and whims. Carlton was about to introduce himself when Will's charming eyes danced their light upon him, but got as far as opening his mouth before Shawn spoke.

"This is Peter—Peter Portcullis. I'm afraid that Branch Von Hazel couldn't make it today. This is my apprentice's apprentice."

"Right," Will said, drawing his head back in a nod that awkwardly accepted what was said. "Well," he glanced at the table in front of him, "you are checked in, and your fee was paid, so let's get you two a book and get you settled in with the rest of the group."

Shawn and Carlton accepted small paperbacks with a packet of stapled papers sticking out of it. Carlton read the cover, _Good Reiki_ it said, along with a long subtitle that he didn't bother perusing. He hoped Shawn didn't ask about the fee. It was one of the things he and Gus had discussed that morning. Rather unprecedented, Burton Guster knocking on the back door at seven-thirty in the morning. Gus had paid for the workshop on his phone the night before, then insisted that Carlton Lassiter take his place. "You owe me," Lassiter had said through a tight jaw and with flashing eyes, "you owe me so, so big for this, Guster." Now Lassiter wished he'd been a bit more gentle. Gus was going through a lot, and he looked like he hadn't slept, and he looked like he'd cried on his way over. Maybe Gus needed a reiki treatment from Shawn. If the event went okay, Carlton thought he might suggest it.

He did not like the way that William Dorin Lissner kept looking at Shawn, though. He was recognizable from his photograph and wee biography on the company's website. Carlton had read it—skimmed it, really—to see if anyone looked suspicious, or if anyone fit the description of the body Shawn had discovered. No one had. Will was a well-educated person, although he hardly looked old enough to have studied as extensively as he had. He was a masseuse, an OTA, and was still in college to obtain a psychology degree, and a reiki practitioner and master apprentice. And he was good at flinging pillows and cushions around, so that Shawn and company could sit on the carpeted floor in relative comfort. He was also good at flinging Shawn looks that Carlton read as shameless flirtation. Is this why Shawn had wanted to come, to flirt with Will? He doubted Shawn's injuries were so swiftly healed, especially after the IHOP monologue, but Shawn had other things on his mind. He didn't know a lot about Shawn, not private matters, and he didn't care to. He pushed the observations out of his thoughts. He sat down, legs crossed under him, as Will introduced the guest speaker, whose book they were given when they checked in. Carlton had a very surreal moment, wondering if he was actually here. For the first time in a while, maybe ever, he felt like a fraud. He wondered if anyone there would know he was, that he didn't belong. It'd been a long time since his skin prickled and his stomach tightened with the possibility of exclusion. Not since five minutes before he got married, and stuff from the past started to creep to the forefront. He was able to put it aside then, and he could put it aside now. Still, it was with relief that he noticed Shawn. Maybe psychically, Shawn sensed his unsettledness, and scooted over until their knees touched. Perhaps it was just a coincidence.

Shawn looked through the book, memorizing large chunks of it by the time the author, Adelaide Barkle Smith, got five minutes into her prefatory speech. Some of the things they were going to do during the workshop were exactly what Shawn needed. It was rather uncanny how that worked.

They started with emotional self-healing techniques. Shawn had done these before—on other people—chiefly because, at the time that he was more into this pseudoscience stuff, he was emotionally anchored. He had never thought to use them on himself. He was glad that they spent fifteen minutes practicing it on themselves, the room having grown quiet and dark behind his closed eyelids. Soft new-age music with harps and birdsong relaxed him further. He wondered what Lassiter would do, if he would just fall asleep or use the time to meditate on his own emotional hurts, whatever they were. He thought about the blue mugs in the kitchen cupboard, and a beige chair in the living room. Undoubtedly, Carlton continued to have hurts. The unbidden memory of a name inked inside the covers of some of Carlton's Russian lit books suggested more to the puzzle. Shawn went back to trying to focus on his own issues.

He was so tired of thinking about Adrian that he was now automatically summoning Pandora. She could deal with it. She was in his imaginal realm, in the reality that existed in the space of his intuition. She existed between the world of reality, that he lived in, and the world that permeated his emotions. That was how he saw it, anyway. He'd used her a lot when he was a teen. He used her a lot when his parents were fighting. He used her when he was sent away during the summers of his childhood, to camp, to Indiana to visit his cousins and uncle, to deal with homesickness. Pandora was an ageless demigod. She was stronger than he was.

She was there again, behind his closed eyes, so close and so real that he felt like he could touch her, that he could hear her sighing. She held the box. It'd morphed back to a box, despite his attempts to shapeshift it into a more translation-accurate jar. His attempts to be scholarly successive even in his imaginal realm were scoffed. "Perfectionist," she uttered with common derision, a satanic upward curl to her lips. And she insisted, almost with a light of humor in her eyes, "Let it go. There is no room for perfection here."

She moved them to an outdoor scene: A playground, and while it was bright with sunshine there was neither heat nor cold. He couldn't smell the grass or hear the birds in the trees. She was gone. He was alone on a swing. He recognized the place. Beyond a little knoll, flashing green and dotted with dandelions, a particularly tall sycamore that held special meaning for Shawn. It was a part of his personal history, now, as the tree where he and Adrian had talked about being together forever, and making all of that possible. Weird, to start out on a nice walk through the park with your honeybun, and wind up talking about things that are so far removed from logic. True love was an impossible task. It was a malfunction of a faulty human brain, stuck in a faulty human body.

"Perfectionist," Pandora said, singsong like, teasingly, from the next swing. She had grown older suddenly, and resembled, in ways, his cousin Denise. "Why do you always think it's going to be easy, when all you do is make it difficult? It isn't supposed to be one thing or another thing. There is no room for perfection in a heart."

If she meant love, then she was wrong. It was not always a forever thing, and he knew that. But this was a dark, dark road he was on, and he wanted to stop thinking about it.

"I'm so tired," he told her. They were walking down a dark stretch of outdoors, now. He didn't know how they got there with the speed of quantum energy and the force of invaluable dreams. "I can't do this anymore."

"Why?" Pandora asked, insisting that he be honest with her. It was a chance for him to be honest with himself, and he knew it. "Because you can't do it well, so you can't do it at all? No one is asking you to be perfect. No one expects that of you but yourself. Adrian was massively imperfect. And you knew it from the start. He loved you. But he was not as kind as he could've been. You saw that. Be careful when you place perfect memories above imperfect scars."

Shawn remembered a horrible incident—and why he should remember it when he'd forgotten it puzzled him—when a moth got stuck in Adrian's car, and rather than scoop it up and set it free outside the hot vehicle, Adrian smashed it with a handy napkin. Shawn had been too surprised by the gesture to say anything. He'd felt sick and numb, though, and thought about it for days.

It was an odd instance, though—very odd. Shawn, automatically, would've just tried to save the moth, not kill it. Killing it wouldn't have occurred to him. Why would killing a little innocent moth stuck in a hot car occur to Adrian? And why had it haunted Shawn far longer than any normal person would've let it? Because what if it'd been a kitten, or a puppy, and why disrespect one living creature if you were going to respect others? But Adrian had gone around killing little things willy-nilly. Little moths in cars, little bugs in windowsills, little ants in the backyard, and even a honey bee because it got too close to the front door.

Pandora gave him a soft clutch at the forearm, urging it out of him. "There were other things, too. Remember his weaknesses. Your weaknesses are your strengths. And his disguise who he truly is. Remember, Shawn. See it now as it was. Look at your scars."

The biggest scar smelled of alcohol. At first, Shawn thought the drinking was just a social thing, but then he noticed that Adrian drank when he was home alone, too, if Shawn were out with Gus and Jules, sometimes one or the other of them, if they could be reined in. And Adrian would've had three-quarters of a bottle of wine gone, or most of a six-pack of whatever bottled brew he was into that week. If they met for lunch, Adrian would have wine or beer, depending on the meal and the restaurant. Shawn had not thought anything about it until they started saving for a house. Shawn sacrificed a lot to save money, stopped a lot of his internet subscriptions, even two that mattered to his business, hadn't been to the Psych office in ages to save on power costs, drove the Norton limitedly, took the bus almost everywhere, ate more ramen and Taco Bell than he cared to admit. And while that was an interesting experience, as public transportation and penury always was, and he learned a lot from it and would never trade it, especially the thousand dollars he now had, Adrian had given up nothing. _Nothing_. Shawn had suggested they give up buying _so much _alcohol, and Adrian laughed at him.

"You are lying to yourself," Pandora whispered, and they were back on the swings, back at the park. "Why do you extol him? His virtues are no greater than yours. You are generous of your talents and time, blithe of spirit, and you fill the world with a brighter hope than what they receive from themselves. Why do you allow him to deflate you with his words and accusations? They are not true. Who is the real liar in your heart? If you must believe a lie, believe the ones you tell yourself, not the ones you hear from those who do not know you, from those who do not respect you, from those who do not love you."

Shawn looked back to the tree. It had gone black though the sun shone. It was charred and all the leaves had burned away. Smoke still curled from its limbs, into the too-blue sky.

Why? Why did he allow the past to continue to hurt him? Nothing Adrian had claimed, had yelled at him that Saturday morning, had been true. But Adrian was so sure that he was—

"He thinks he's right," Shawn said to Pandora.

She raised her chin, listening. A soundless wind, shapeless and full of grace, touched the long strands of her red-gold hair, and moved them with an invisible caress. Her cheeks were round, her lashes long and plush over gray eyes that saw into the soul of him. "He _thinks _he's right. That is a formless opinion. It is his own. A man believes his own lie, not always the truth before him. It has no impact on you. It is on him that these opinions were formed. You can do nothing to stop him. You can do nothing to stop anyone from disliking you based on inaccuracies and assumptions."

Shawn snickered, pumped to move the swing, but suddenly dragged his toe in stones and dirt to stop. "It would've been easier if he'd just cheated on me."

Pandora raised one eyebrow, a quirk so much like Denise that Shawn wondered if his cousin was one of his closest emotional pillars in his real world. She was the first one to guess that he was okay with boys as well as girls, and he was only fourteen at the time. She was excited when she found out about Adrian, but warned him to be cautious, to continue dating other people—just to be sure. And here was Pandora as an adult, the first time she'd ever showed herself to him in that form, looking like the first woman relation in his life that he'd really trusted.

The quirky upright tilt of Pandora's eyebrow seemed to silently ask the question, "Are you so sure he didn't?"

But even Shawn couldn't believe that. "No," he said, pumping again but now finding himself sitting on a wet rock near a waterfall in the night. Pandora stood in front of him, knee deep in the water, a child again in her lavender-floral dress, her braids, her solemn and wise eyes upon him. "He wouldn't cheat on me."

"He cheated on you," she paused, taking so long to continue that Shawn felt sick, "in so many ways. It is not always infidelity of the bedroom that cheats a man through his heart."

She was right. Adrian had hurt him in a lot of ways—ways that had gutted him and made him wish they had never met. It had been a long, long year, and Shawn wanted to stop thinking about it. He wanted to leave Adrian behind. "Can you skip me ahead six years, to the part where this doesn't hurt anymore?"

She touched the top of his head with a surprisingly warm palm. "Frederic."

Shawn opened his eyes, Will standing over him.

"Wakey, wakey," Will said, dropping his hand from Shawn's forehead. He was on his knees beside Shawn, and around him the audience was watching. Adelaide Barkle Smith was one of those, as was Lassiter. Shawn started to sit upright. Will thought he looked well enough, if a little sleepy, and a bit on the thin side. Ideas wandered unfinished through Will's head. "Guess you went a little further away than you intended."

Shawn guessed he was right about that. "How long was I gone?"

"Same as everyone else," Lassiter told him, not liking the look of a vulnerable Shawn still on the floor, and Will hovering close. "We just couldn't wake you up."

"Let's get him some water," Adelaide suggested. "It'll ground you. Would you drink some water, Frederic? Or eat a banana?"

"Uh," Shawn didn't know, still getting his bearings, and still latched too tightly to wherever he'd gone. To sleep, apparently. "Yeah, sure."

Lassiter shifted on his feet, remembering Shawn twirling food around on his plate, pretending to eat a pancake but eating only air. He helped bring Shawn to his feet, holding his elbow, resisting the temptation to drop it right when Shawn was vertical. He let his hand rest there, squeeze there, hoping— "Maybe we should go?"

But Shawn refused to leave. He went to the restroom after the banana and the water, while the class resumed following a short recess. He splashed water on his burning eyes. The door opened, and in came Lassiter.

"Don't talk me into leaving," Shawn insisted, "please don't. We haven't got anything useful. And if we leave before we have anything, it'll be a wasted trip, and I would've wasted your time. Thanks for paying for the class, by the way."

"That was Gus," Carlton said, knocking that away with one swift blow. "Are you sure you're all right? Didn't you sleep last night?"

"Yeah, I slept. I'm fine. We need to keep on. If we leave now—"

"No one will _blame us_. You were practically unconscious back there."

And he had smelled bleach in his dreams. Was that only associative? Waterfall, water sometimes holding a chlorinated smell. Still, he couldn't help thinking about the burns on the body's feet. He didn't reply right away to Lassiter, and beefy hands came down with unwarranted gentleness on his shoulders. Shawn looked him right in the eye.

"I am not _leaving._" Shawn grabbed Lassie's wrist and squeezed. "Look, I might have a plan. But you're going to have to be a big, brave copper and do what I say."

Lassiter's hands dropped, believing what Shawn said simply because Shawn had said it. "If we go through with this plan, will we please leave?" It wasn't only the feeling that they'd find out he didn't belong there, he was sure there were other cops into this sort of thing, but he was afraid for Shawn. It was just as well that they were still stuck at the workshop, since all Lassiter wanted to do right then was find Adrian Harris-Collins and—he decided to discontinue the thought of violence for something a little more placid. "I'm worried about you."

"What?" It was a knee-jerk reaction. He couldn't stand the thought that Lassie had just said that, that there was a defenseless tension between them that was starting to make his wrists feel weak and his knees succumb to the sensations of a chlorinated pool water at the base of a waterfall.

"Don't make me repeat that," Carlton uttered, his face pulled tight. "What do you want me to do?"

About a minute later, Shawn was back in the classroom. Adelaide was answering someone's question, and Shawn found Will standing alone in front of the blind-covered windows. Shawn whispered in Will's ear—and damn if Will didn't smell good. He lost focus, then regained it with the remembrance of the body, of Pandora and the pool and Adrian's faults, and Lassie's concern burning a spot in his chest. Will gave a nod, smiling again at Shawn and exuding the sweetness that braided his soul to others so quickly. Shawn smiled back a little crookedly, almost bashfully. It was _too soon_, but _too soon _was better than _never again_.

Will broke in after Adelaide had answered the question. He waved Shawn to the front of the classroom with him, and Shawn went on a brief spiel about how he was sorry for disrupting the class. Then, for no apparent reason, only that Lassiter hadn't returned yet, Shawn found himself talking about his imaginal realm and what he had found there. He talked about Pandora, but only a little. Others around him were nodding and agreeing, and there were always "hummers" in a group that size, about thirty people. Hummers were the ones who hummed at almost everything he said, incapable of not making any noise at all as they agreed or found a reason to be in resonance with what he related.

At one point, talking about how long he'd had the imaginal realm, he looked up and saw Lassie standing in the doorway. The look on his face was unfathomable, whether it was concern, interest or respect. Was there a word for all three? Awe? No, too religious-sounding, and Shawn knew that he was no god. He went into a sudden conclusion of his imaginal realm dialogue, thanked Will and Adelaide for allowing him to have the floor for a moment, and returned to his cushions. Lassiter returned to the carpeted area next to him. The two of them exchanged a silent message: _Mission accomplished_, Lassiter seemed to say; _Sorry you had to hear that_, was Shawn's.

Adelaide taught them DNA repair, which they worked on for another fifteen minutes. Will hovered by Shawn during the exercise, just to be on the safe side. The two exercises were done in pairs. Shawn teamed up with Lassie. The two of them committed to a meditation for healing on someone they knew. Lassiter wanted to do Shawn, and Shawn wanted to do the body.

"Can you do a healing session for someone who's dead?" Carlton blurted out to Adelaide, who happened to be standing close by. "Or only on the living?"

"You can do it on a soul who's passed on, sure," Adelaide said.

Carlton's shoulders dropped. "Fine," he said, taking Shawn's hands again. He noticed that they were getting very warm. "I still think it's a waste of time when _you _need it more."

The last meditation was to share energy between partners. Carlton had to admit that he felt _something _when Shawn was deep in his meditation, and his hands were definitely _hot_. His hands only got hot because Shawn's were. Shawn tried to pour whatever he could into the tension between them, even if this was purely a one-sided energy event. He hadn't been into any of this stuff for a while, and it felt like a combination of idiocy and rediscovery.

The last event was a reiki share, when they talked about their work and shared lightworker stories. To Shawn's great relief, Adelaide offered attunements to anyone who felt like they needed one. Shawn asked her to do one on him, then one on Carlton. Carlton didn't really get what an attunement was, except what he'd seen Adelaide perform on others in attendance. He stayed seated in a chair, more comfortable if his eyes were closed and he didn't have to see what Adelaide was doing. But he saw colors behind his eyes in swirls and fans, in prisms and sparkles, and then the whole thing was over. He felt like he'd just had a whole bottle of wine.

In the lobby, with its water fountain and palm trees, Carlton waited for Shawn. He was talking to Adelaide and Will, then just Will. He bit his nail unconsciously, wondering what the two of them were talking about and if it was what he thought it was. He could read lips a little, but Will was turned away too far and Shawn didn't say much. Shawn only looked pleased, but not overly pleased, when he joined him. "What was that about?"

"They were asking me about my imaginal realm experiences," Shawn said. "Adelaide wants to email me and maybe have lunch soon. She lives in Santa Clarita, and isn't going on tour so we'll have time to meet up. And Will just wants to do dinner tonight."

Carlton felt his throat tighten. It was what he thought. "Are you going?"

"Well, we didn't have plans, did we?" Shawn said, holding a tone of accusation. "And it might help me. I've had some visions I don't really understand, and I think maybe our body had some attachment to this place." It sounded funnier now, "our body." It sounded less like evidence and less like a person than some force that had joined him and Lassie together. _Our body_. "Don't worry, I'll be home by midnight. I just may or may not be home by myself." He slugged Carlton on the arm with a knowing wink. He didn't expect Carlton to take him so seriously. "Oh, for crying out loud! Carlton! Kidding! Kidding! It's _too soon_!"

He slumped into the car, slammed the door, and pouted a moment. He did _not _like this whole thing with Lassiter, and he was exasperated. He felt like sleeping with Will just to defy the shackles holding him down.

Carlton got in the car, put the keys in the ignition. "I'm sorry," he said gruffly. "I don't have any right to tell you what you can and cannot do. I just want you to be," he struggled to find the right word, something that spoke the truth of what he was feeling and how he really saw things, and he still felt like he'd had a whole bottle of wine, "gentle with yourself."

"I'll be gentle with myself. I promise." Shawn had never heard anyone put it that way before. Not Gus, Jules—his dad, Pandora, his mom. Just Lassie.

Carlton found movement in the front of the car. Between the hot windshield and dashboard fluttered a pretty little green bug with diaphanous wings, looking like a baby dragonfly but surely wasn't. He managed to get it up on his forefinger and out the open window. "Go on, little guy—go on." He had to blow to get it off his finger, though, as if it wanted to hang out a while longer. He didn't understand why Shawn was staring at him. "What?"

"Uh, nothing," Shawn managed to utter, turning quickly away to look out his own open window. Some unknown spot in his chest flipped over, and something in his soul breathed a sigh of relief. It was like he'd been set free, too, like the little bug Lassie had just saved.


	16. A Princely Scheme

**XVI. A Princely Scheme**

Lassiter was pretty sure that he wanted to climb into a dark oak barrel and fall asleep. Why an oak barrel? He wasn't entirely sure. It just sounded nice. Woodsy, comforting, and he could pretend that he was some mighty and mythological creature that survived in the magical forests that slipped and spun and dove into the edges of Shawn's imaginal realm. He could be a liquid wolf, a silver streak in the soft blue light of a wide and silent moon. His tail would be tufted and brilliant, and he'd be hunted for one small strand of fur from his tail. He'd be friends with unicorns. He'd protect the woods from evil poachers and wily little dragons full of arrogance and boring ancient lore. And with the pink of dawn skittering across the sky, he'd retire to his oak barrel bed, curl into a ball with his unique tail of spun silver wrapped at his nose, and he'd sleep within the land of forgotten things.

"Lassie," Shawn said, using the palm of a hand to hit Carlton on the shoulder. "Light's green. You going, or did you want to wait for a deeper shade?"

Lassiter gunned the car forward, jerking Shawn back into the seat with the force of horsepower, the spin of torque. "I'm a little tired," he said. "Fell into a little daydream, I guess."

Shawn was curious about this. "And what do Lassiters daydream about?"

"Minding our own business," Carlton replied, as if this had all be rehearsed. Now, though, they'd been through too much. How and what was inexplicable, a catch at the end of his tongue, a knot of words left in his lungs. "Uh—I don't know. Sleeping. I was thinking it'd be nice to take a nap. I feel a little weird."

Shawn didn't want to tell him why. On the other hand— "You got reiki attuned, Lass. Of course you're worn out. You're now _one of us._"

Lassiter doubted this. He was no grunted in response, hopeful that the grunt dismissed the possibility. And, anyway, if it was true, he didn't know what it meant and he didn't want to take the time to find out. While it'd all been very interesting, Lassiter admitted that the most interesting parts involved Shawn and their sneaking-around bit. Lassiter was sorry he hadn't found anything, but grateful that he'd returned to the classroom in the front of the building in time to see part of Shawn's speech. "Can I be Jedi Carlton?"

"It just doesn't really have a nice, Star Wars-y euphony, though. We should try combining your first name and last name. Carlas Tonter. There we go. Way better." He was pleased that even Lassiter split his mouth into a grin. It did sound very Star Wars-y. "Jedi Carlas Tonter. I'd be—what would I be? Uh—"

"Penshaw Senser—? No, wait. Enser Shawpen, that's better. Star Wars-y."

"I'll work on it," Shawn said, not sold yet. Lassiter was faster at whipping that together than Shawn anticipated.

"What are you doing now?"

Shawn caught Lassie looking at him out the corner of his eye, as if suggesting they should find a hovel in the woods and nap there together, practice floating rocks with their Jedi powers and learning ways to defeat the Empire. The idea wasn't without its appeal, Shawn admitted, but, darn it, he had other errands to run, and the identity of a body to find. First things first, though. "I want to talk to Gus."

That sounded like a solid depiction of friendship, to Lassiter. "I'm sure he'd like that. Want me to drop you off there instead of the laundry basket?"

It was likely that Gus or Jules would take him where he needed to go next, and Gus might want to come along. Shawn had nothing to do at home, anyway. Stare at the walls. Read books. Unpack. Think about his dinner that night with Will, what he should wear, if it was a date or just lightworkers getting to know one another. "Yeah, take me to Gus and Jules' place, please, if you don't mind."

Since he was there, Lassiter went with Shawn to the front door. Juliet had moved into Gus's place, Carlton couldn't remember when, it just seemed like she'd always been there, that they'd always been together. He'd been grumpy about it, when it happened and they started to open up about their relationship. Now, though, Carlton saw them as a unit, unable to be split apart. Gus offered him coffee or tea or whatever was potable in the fridge, and Carlton accepted tea. When Gus went into the kitchen to prep it, Shawn went with him. He was left with O'Hara, talking about the apartment when he wished he could've been a fly on the wall in that kitchen. The level of his friendship with Shawn had lifted, and perhaps, feeling reckless and insensitive enough to protect himself from an impending rebuff, Carlton could ask Shawn later how it'd gone with Gus.

"Are things better?" he asked tentatively of O'Hara. She looked a little worn out, a little pale, in a red t-shirt and black jeans. Around-the-house clothes. They were probably doing things that couples do on a Saturday afternoon: go to the grocery store, make a Target run, maybe make plans to have brunch with Gus's parents tomorrow. Who knew? It was a side of them he didn't think about much, no more, he guessed, than they thought about him and what he did at home.

"Things are, yeah, things are better," she stuttered and stalled. It was nice of him to ask. "How'd Shawn do this morning?"

He explained what he'd seen at the workshop, from Shawn's trance to Shawn's talk about imaginal realm.

"I've heard of that before," Juliet said. "We studied it in college. You didn't?"

"Not that I remember," he answered. "But I went to college a good eon ahead of you, O'Hara, and maybe it wasn't part of the curriculum then." And he doubted he remembered. While he had to take CEUs every year to keep up with law enforcement changes, as well as technology, he doubted he remembered much of his original college days. The images of those days were veiled, softened by misery and loss, hope and the power of dreams. Arturo—Victoria—Russian lit and Pasternak and Shawn.

Juliet crossed her ankles as she sat in her favorite oversized reading chair. Her thoughts moved further away. "That could be, I don't know. It's an interesting concept, though, isn't it? I wonder what Shawn's imaginal realm is like?"

He had a memory hit him, a flash of purple light and a sound like power. Shawn had mentioned Pandora earlier that day, before they'd gone to the classroom, and how he'd talked at the workshop about his helpers and guides. And one of them was Pandora. "Probably some form of chaos," he offered, smirking and eyes shining with the height of his own wit. "Guster okay?"

"Yeah," Juliet proclaimed, finding it odd that Lassiter should know all of this. It was an oddly intimate fiasco for him to be in on. Usually, he shrugged off their foibles and troubles, having no interest in their personal issues. She knew that at the time of her engagement, Lassiter would've gladly snickered at them, told them it wouldn't last and why were they bothering with the formality at all. Now, though, now she looked at him sitting across from her and it was like looking at a different person. "He's all right. Just getting freaked out. I suppose it's good for us to get a little freaked out. He's mostly worried about Shawn. Not Shawn right now, but the whole Adrian thing hasn't helped either of us feel good about Shawn's place. He's worried about Shawn in the long-term."

"Makes sense. You know he went back to the laundromat, yeah?"

"I heard. Weird. And that can't be good for him."

"Why?" Because Lassiter had had the same thought, but hadn't been able to acknowledge why he'd had that thought.

"It's like stepping backwards," Juliet said. "All he's done the last year with Adrian is move forward with his life—and we don't know how far the two of them went together, do we? I mean, Gus just found out that Shawn's been living in Ventura practically this whole time. We never knew. We don't know what else he's done, might've done."

"We never went to Shawn's place a whole lot. How were we supposed to know what he doesn't tell us?"

Juliet winced her eyes at him, because she was trying to see into Carlton far enough to find the little wisp in there that might, one day, cause the flame of passion to override his sense of duty. He was like Watson—science, facts, keeping Sherlock under control, keeping him in line. "You looked into him, didn't you?"

Carlton raised his eyes, not his head, and scanned her for signs of trustworthiness. How had she done that? How had she known? "And like you didn't think of it," he scoffed. "You've cared about Shawn longer than I have. I wanted to know who he was—Adrian, I mean. Didn't you?"

She blinked, welcoming this possibility. "Yes. Yeah—yeah, I did. You know who is family is, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do. Aside from that, he's dull as drying paint. He seems so damn conventional," Lassiter said, "it's downright boring. I can't find so much as a parking ticket."

Juliet's eyes turned soft and full of humor. So he hadn't dug that deep, and she was glad. If Shawn wanted to tell him anything else, Shawn would. Until then, well, her lips were sealed. And she hadn't even told Gus. It was too much. "You don't like him."

"Of course I don't," he snapped, now beginning to wonder what was taking so long with the tea. It wasn't the tea, naturally; it was the conversation. "What, and you do? Someone who could make Shawn _look _like that, and you'd not want to punch him in the face?"

She was caught between finding it funny and taking it too seriously. Carlton had fire in his eyes now, and it was more anger than scintillation. He cared about Shawn enough to notice how broken Shawn had become, right in front of them, helpless and more helpless with every passing day. "Yeah, I do," she said quietly, looking at a pink nail without really seeing it, only thinking back to the day she saw Shawn walk into the police department, stand in front of Lassiter's desk, only days ago. "I do want to punch him in the face—or wherever it'd hurt the most."

That sounded more like O'Hara, Carlton thought. "I wish we—"

She seemed to understand what he didn't say. It was the closest she'd ever heard Lassiter admit that he cared about Shawn—actually cared. "You could cheer him up by playing Trivial Pursuit."

He growled, humorously. "No. Not happening. Ever." He might've grown a little more fond of Shawn—or whatever it was that no longer caused him disgust and revenge—but he was _not _going to stoop so low. "I will not play Trivial Pursuit with Shawn. I will not play it with a fox. I will not play it in a box."

Juliet was giggling—and Shawn and Gus came into the room. Gus was holding a tray with a tea set on it—an actual tea set so elaborate and almost pretty that Lassiter stared at it. The teapot was ivory with a floral red spray, the artwork more contemporary than old-fashioned. The plates matched, as did the cups. A little creamer and sugar dish also matched. There was not only tea, but cookies and sliced oranges in bowls of cut glass.

Shawn sat close to Lassiter on the couch, not because he needed to sit there, because it's just where his butt happened to land first. He was starting to feel as tired as Lassiter had claimed on the drive over, and falling asleep somewhere started to seem very appealing. The tea would perk him up. Now that he'd had a good conversation with Gus about what'd happened last night and this morning, and they'd forgiven each other in the way men do, with silence and with the change of subject, Shawn could focus on something else. His mind had started going, he'd told Gus. He was close to understanding what he had to do to find the identification of the body. It was nice, he claimed, to have a case that was workable, that didn't necessarily have the shards of violence that a murder did. The body had died of natural causes. The only odd things were his lacking identity and the chemical burns on his feet. Shawn knew that both were clues, not inconveniences.

Gus poured the tea, and Shawn took his with a bit of sugar, and grabbed a Lu's Pims cookie. He'd already eaten two in the kitchen, but a third wouldn't hurt. With pancakes that morning, and cookies now, he'd catch up to his old weight in no time at all. Now that the worst with Adrian was over, it was about moving ahead, getting ahead, not looking back. His brain had finally stopped veering him back to Adrian, every little connection, every little snippet of remembered conversation. He'd tried to get Adrian to like Pims before, but it didn't take. Shawn shut the memory down as he munched his cookie and heard Lassiter talk about the workshop. Juliet was mesmerized by a small detail Lassiter had let slip.

"Wait, you've actually allowed someone to do reiki on you _before _this?" She was incredulous. It just didn't seem like something he would do. She was always trying to contain him in a box with a fox, she guessed. As long as the fox was Shawn, she didn't care.

"Well, yeah," Carlton said slowly, with ample conviction. "Duh," he added, taking it out of the air because it seemed like a good place for it. "A few times. Just not for many years. My mom had it done a lot. And Shawn's hands actually did get warm, which is really the only thing I remember from having it done on me."

"Your hands will get warm now, too, Lass," said Shawn, scraping crumbs off his abdomen into the palm of his hand, back on his little delicate saucer. He liked that Jules and Gus owned a tea set. How adorable was that? He wondered if Lass owned a tea set. No, not likely. Two blue mugs flashed into his mind—finally in the cupboard at Victoria's place. And the Kiss the Cook mug was gone, broken last night by Lassiter. He raised his gaze to Jules. "He got _attuned_."

Juliet gasped, wide-eyed. Gus started laughing.

"What's that even mean?" Carlton was self-conscience. "No, you know what? Never mind. I don't want to know."

"We'll work on it sometime, Lassie. We will perfect your lightworker skills. Then you'll be like what's-her-name in _Charmed_."

Carlton didn't want in on this conversation. He sipped his tea, avoided eating a cookie, and took an orange slice instead. He held out the plate of cookies to Shawn, hopeful that another would be taken. Shawn tipped forward and took one, shoved half in his mouth right away. That satisfied Carlton, even if he wasn't the only one meant to keep an eye on Shawn right now. He caught Juliet watching him, and when she didn't look away immediately, he knew they must be thinking the same thing. Not the _exact _same thing, that would be scary, but same enough that he was satisfied, even if he was more embarrassed than he'd been before. It didn't heat him up and make him want to sink into the netherworld like it used to. Maybe he was getting used to it. Not the embarrassment so much, but caring about Shawn, letting everyone know that he cared—a little. Enough. More than enough. He showed enough.

It wasn't long after this silent moment of commiseration between him and O'Hara that he decided it was probably best if he left. Before he went out the door, O'Hara asked him about the case they got called on recently, solved within a few hours, and if he wanted her to sign off on it, or if he wanted to do it. He delegated it to her. She'd worked harder on it, and while she hadn't been taking on a lot of cases lately, what few there were, she needed a couple now and again to keep her skills in working condition. He could feel her staring at him again, in that way that made him feel ugly and beautiful, transparent and inscrutable, and all those contradictions that shattered his persona.

"What?" he finally asked, tired of her scrutiny. "Do I have something hanging out of my nose?"

"No," she said, breathlessly laughing. He had a way of being serious while being funny. It wasn't charming, it was too ludicrous to be charming, but it was definitely a strong characteristic. "You really got attuned?"

"Apparently. Good grief, you guys make it sound like I got kidnapped by aliens—or, at the very least—prodded by some little green man." The thought of little green men conjured the image of William Dorin Lissner—and something inside of him, a tiny part off to the side of his heart, crunched and crackled. "What's that mean, anyway?"

"It means you can do reiki now."

"Oh, yay," he said sarcastically, limply punching the air with aggrieved cheer. "I'm now one of the few who claim to do something but can actually do absolutely nothing—like a millennial with a college degree. Just call me Jedi Master Carlas Tonter." He waved his hand, saying, "This is not the SBPD detective you're looking for. Move along."

"You should go to reiki workshops with Shawn more often," she said, "you're in an awfully good mood."

Awfully good mood sounded like an oxymoron, but he didn't argue. She pushed him, not quite out the door, but almost with what she said next.

"Or just hang out with Shawn more."

"I'm leaving," he proclaimed, pulling in the door, edging out into the cool, cloudy day. "Bye, O'Hara."

"Bye, Carlas Tonter. Enjoy whatever it is you're going to do."

"I will. Thanks for the tea."

"Anytime. But only if you'll play a game of Trivial Pursuit!"

"See you never!"

By the time he got into his car, Beethoven's Fifth chimed on his phone. On the screen, a text from Shawn that was only a quiet thank-you for breakfast, and that stupid little dog icon again. "See ya later, Carlas Tonter?" the next message said.

"As you wish, Enser Shawpen," he texted back. Starting his car, he drove towards home. First, though, he wondered if there was some Saturday afternoon errand he was forgetting to do: a stop at the grocery, a Target run. He could think of nothing, but didn't exactly want to go home. Shawn had done most of the chores that week, leaving Lassiter with free time. He did what any cop would do: he went to the station. With nothing going on there, however, he had time to let his mind wander into worry.

"Dobson," Lassiter called to the officer sauntering in front of his desk.

Dobson's big eyes were brown and syrupy, nerves tightened under the strain of the detective's call. "Ye-yeah, Lassiter?"

How long would it be before Dobson stopped being afraid of him, anyway? Probably about the time that he'd willingly play a game of Trivial Pursuit with Shawn, et alii. Never. He gave his throat a clear. "Uh, look, are you working tonight? On patrol?"

"Yeah, me and McNab. Downtown, mostly. Depends, though."

Dobson was not exactly precise with anything—not with where he'd been, where he was going, or what he was doing at that exact moment. If Lassiter asked, Dobson would say that he was standing there talking to him, but also on his way out. Dobson lived in simultaneous moments, afraid to make a decision that might change the course of his life. Lassiter did _not _understand why Firefighter Mike—which they all called him because they couldn't always remember his last name—anyway, you know the guy, Dobson's significant other—why Mike didn't lose his patience with Dobson once in a while.

"I-I mean," Dobson went on in this vein of vagueness, "depends on what's going on round here tonight, don't you think? It's been pretty quiet. Don't know. Might change. Saturday night—things could get rowdy. But probably not. I mean, it's cold, isn't it? Unseasonably cold, Mike says."

_Alwin_, Lassiter suddenly thought in his head. Mike's last name was Alwin_. _Lassiter had met him enough times, at parties and such, even at his own barbecue last weekend, that it should stick in his head better. Why, though? No one ever called Dobson by his first name, mostly because he did not look like a Jack, and they always called him Dobson—or Dobbie—or Dobs. Mike was not particularly forgettable: firefighter physique, something suave and Greek-god about him, and maybe Dobson was just a smidgen insecure that Mike would up and leave him. He thought about Shawn and Adrian, and cracked a knuckle. Dobson fidgeted.

"Did-did you want us to do something?" the officer asked tentatively, now knowing he had to pee. He had to pee badly. Lassiter made him nervous, and not in a good way. More in the "need to now pee" way. "Me and McNab?"

"Yeah, I would like you to do something, if you have the time. Follow Shawn for a little bit. If you can find him."

Dobson always liked following Shawn. The detective had sent him on many Follow Shawn escapades over the last couple of years. Good times—solid good times. It was particularly fun when Shawn pretended not to notice that he was being followed, then catch Dobson and McNab around a corner, invite them into his private Shawn world where everyone was a friend and energy seemed infinitesimal. It wasn't quite as much fun if he tried to get Shawn to catch him too early. That's when things went wrong. But he'd noticed—or hadn't noticed—that Shawn wasn't around much. And when he last saw Shawn, it was at Lassiter's cute little house, sitting on Lassiter's ugly gray sofa.

"He on the Norton?"

"Probably." Lassiter gave it with a dismissive air. Dobson started turning away. A snap of an image clicked on in his brain, then winked out. "Wait. No. He's with Guster. But this evening. Keep an eye on his place, the laundromat. You know where it is?"

"Yeah," answered Dobson, recalling the small cube resting at the end of an old strip mall, "that old spot over between, like, Cook and St. Andres. Yeah?"

"Yeah." Why was he astonished that they should all know where Shawn lived?

Dobson's eyebrows puckered in the soft spot between them. "Why's he there? He move out of your place already?"

"It was only temporary," Lassiter muttered, flipping through old cases to give himself a task, a focus, something away from Shawn. He flicked his gaze across Dobson, saw a hint of amusement and amazement, and flicked it back. He thought he knew. There were bets going around the cop shop. Big ones, about him and Shawn and their living arrangement, even if it wasn't forever, even if they were betting that it was forever. "Are you out a lot of money, Dobbie?"

Dobson rubbed his chest, self-conscious, honest. "Twenty buckaroos, but that's not a big deal. I'm more sorry for you and Shawn than about my twenty dollars."

"Go on," Lassiter said, cold in voice, resetting the timbre to reflect it like the flat surface of an icy pond.

Dobson went, sure that he'd said a lot, too much. But he could hardly wait to get out the door before picking his phone from his pocket, and calling Mike to tell him—

Lassiter rubbed his face, sighing as he swore. He needed to get a life, if his coworkers were taking bets on him and Shawn. The only person he could think to complain to was Shawn, and that was a superfluous action. He took a chance and messaged O'Hara.

"Did you know there was a station-wide bet about how long Shawn would stay with me?"

"I'm not surprised," O'Hara replied. "A few of them owe me money."

"Thanks, O'Hara."

"Always got your back." She sent a thumbs-up emoji.

With that conversation tainting the bile that'd risen into his throat, he texted the same to Shawn, changing out the proper noun for a pronoun, of course. It took a while for a response to come through. Shawn was likely still hanging out with his two best friends.

"There was a bet about how long I'd stay with you? Really? Who had forever? I want to know so I can hug him/her/them. Was it you?"

"No," he typed back, unsure how to carry on the rest of the conversation by answering Shawn's inane questions. It wasn't until he sent the text "I didn't even know the bet was going on" that his cheeks flamed—and he wondered how Shawn would take that. As a confirmation that he would've bet forever, or as confirmation that he would never have made such a ridiculous bet in the first place? He wasn't sure. Waiting for a reply was good, old-fashioned agony.

Finally, Beethoven's Fifth sounded, and Carlton pounced on the phone. He read the text once, read it again, and set the phone down gently. It was confusing, and he did not know how to deal with it, and left it alone. Restless, he tidied his desk as much as he cared to these days, and floated, without true awareness of his actions, back to his car. He had a strange longing to be home.

Once there, he didn't know what to do with himself, either. The house was clean: no chores needed to be done. No one was around: he couldn't talk to anyone. He was still burping up IHOP: there was no food he could make. He lay on the couch on his back, remote in his hand. Throwing the beam somewhere near the television, it came on, and music started to play at a low volume. Jazz again—he'd never changed the channel. He let it play, closing his eyes and trying to find his way into his own imaginal realm. In it, he'd crawl into an oak barrel in the middle of a magical wood, curl himself into a ball, tuck his fluffy tail of moon-spun silver against his nose, and dream of everlasting things.


	17. Innocent & Heartless

**XVII. Innocent & Heartless**

Gus knew he couldn't handle spending too much time with Shawn that afternoon. It wasn't in him, and that pained him further. The tension between them was so palpable Gus shivered in its ensorcelling shadow. They had talked things out in the kitchen. Gus had profusely apologized. Shawn talked about "wedding brain" again, as if it were a real disease the CDC was looking into and planning quarantines. It was beginning to seem real to Gus. Shawn had been pleasant and modest against Gus's guilt, waving it away with a hand, saying there was nothing to forgive, that they were as solid as ever.

And that worried Gus further. When would it really _hit _Shawn that from that point on, it was all change, change, change? Next to never, that was likely. Shawn had already gone through personal dishevelments in the last year. At least it wasn't wedding brain, but it had a name, nonetheless, an anomaly known as Adrian Harris-Collins. What had happened between Shawn and Adrian was so intense, so deep, so puzzling, that Gus had not been able to capture much of it. He caught it in flashes, in downdrafts, in little storms and quivers that shook Shawn, made his eyes dance as if with fire and the light on top of the ocean waves. He just assumed that Shawn enjoyed Adrian's company. He didn't ask a lot of questions; it wasn't his business. Guys didn't ask questions like that, Gus had explained to Juliet when she asked him, really and deadly-true asked him, if he hadn't seen Shawn's breakup coming. What was there to see when he'd roamed blind beside Shawn for the last year?

"There was you," Gus had told Juliet, pointing delicately at her, "and there was me," he pointed to himself, "and that's all I've really seen of a relationship the last year. I didn't mean to let my vigilance slip. I didn't know it was my year to babysit him." To which Juliet had proclaimed that it wasn't his year, that they should've all paid more attention. She rubbed his arms and kneaded away the toughness of his personal doubts.

He felt that he'd let Shawn down. Shawn, to his credit, denied it. His jokes about "wedding brain" were cute, to be sure, but it all meant nothing to Shawn. And Shawn was not without admitting his own faults.

"I should've told you guys more—more about everything," he'd said when the two of them were in the kitchen, "and I didn't because I chose not to. He's hard to get to know—and I feel like, now, like I barely knew him. And what I did know, I guess I thought you wouldn't like, that you'd see the scratches in the surface of his imperfections. His moments of meanness. His drinking. He never treated me badly, but in treating himself badly, he treated me badly, too. And you'd spend your time worrying about me. I didn't _want _that. Or warning me to watch out. I didn't want _that _either. I knew what you'd say. Could hear it, clear as a bell on a clear, clear day. It wasn't going to last. It wasn't." He'd paused, thumb and finger to his eyelids downed over watery eyeballs. "Even my imagined versions of what you guys would say were more right than I was—and I saw him—every day—and I didn't know he'd turn his back on me."

Gus had tried to pull at the thread hanging from this whimpering glimmer of the near-past. "What did he _say _to you, Shawn?" Because Gus had thought as everyone else had, that it had ended because Adrian was good-looking, gregarious, well-off: he had obviously cheated on Shawn. That had been clear. Crystal. And now it was fog hanging over a murky swamp.

Shawn had opened his mouth to speak, to fan away the fog surrounding the mystery, but he pushed his lips together again, stared at the floor to find answers there. All he'd found was what he knew he'd find. "It's too soon, dude. I can't say yet."

"What about," Gus had haltered there, terrified to go on, put an idea in Shawn's head, "what about a reconciliation? Do you think it's possible? What would you do if Adrian said he was sorry—that he'd made a mistake?" The look on Shawn's face had frightened Gus. It was full of light and hope—then tumbled into darkness and sorrow all without Shawn doing more than blink.

"No," he'd responded softly. "No—and another big no. Even if he did come back, I-I—no. Why would I want to be with someone that felt that way about me? I couldn't do it. I wouldn't want to do it."

Gus had left it alone. They talked about Lassiter instead. He was their common ground. People talked about food or the weather, but they talked about Lassiter. Gus asked about their fake-date at IHOP that morning, and how it'd gone there, then at the workshop. Shawn was respectful of Lassiter's help, and relieved that breakfast had been paid for. The only problem was that they'd really found out nothing.

"Dude," Shawn said in the car, staring at his phone, "is it flirting with Lassie if I tell him I'd hug him anyway?"

Gus wasn't sure how to respond. If Juliet had her way, and Cupid fulfilled her whim, he'd be hearing a lot more of this in the future. "In what context?"

Shawn read the messages about the bet at the station, finishing with his yet-to-be-sent text about hugging.

"You can send that," Gus said. "He'll think you're an idiot, but at least you're an affectionate idiot."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Shawn sent the text, put the phone in his hoodie pocket, and stared out the window. It beat looking ahead of him, heart hitting its pitch when he saw a car that looked like Adrian's. How long until this pain subsided? "Oh, I have a date tonight. I think it's a date, anyway."

Gus did a double-take. Shawn was cool and unruffled, as if this was an everyday occurrence. For a while there, before Shawn settled in with Adrian, it kind of was. "I thought you said it was too soon! Are you going out with that cute guy from the massage parlor?"

"He asked me out to dinner tonight, and I said yes. It's mostly business. I think. Well, either way, we can get what we want. I think Lassiter's pissed about it." He quieted for a second, feeling his phone in his pocket, thinking back to the morning. "Is that weird? Do you think he's jealous?"

"He probably wants that cute little guy for himself," Gus chuckled, satisfied with his take on it. He didn't like the look Shawn threw him. "Oh, what, objectively I can't say that he's cute? He's cute."

"Would you go out with him?"

"I'm engaged, and no."

"Quiet 'no'—or more like a loud, Texas _hell no_?"

"More like a no—you know—a good no. A solid no. He is cute, but a solid no. Are you going to sleep with him?"

This is what guys talked about. Between the two of them, there was no dancing around a subject. Shawn gave an amused noise, looking out the side window again.

"I haven't decided yet. Is that bad? Should I feel guilty?"

"You should probably feel something. I don't know if it's guilt. That's between you and your conscience."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he repeated what he'd said a minute ago. "Will is really cute. Dangerously cute. I don't know. Why isn't a guy that cute seeing someone?"

"I've heard a theory about this. Want to hear it?"

"Do woodchucks chuck wood? Yeah, I do. Lay it on me."

"A lot of people would never approach a good-looking person just automatically assuming that a good-looking person already has someone he or she is dating. So, consequently, they don't get asked out a lot on dates."

Shawn gaped at him. "Are you freaking serious right now?"

"Really, it's true. I heard it on a talk show in one of the doctor's office on my route. I know! Fascinating, right? So, that's probably why Will doesn't have anyone."

"Or he's a psycho."

"Also a viable option."

"Or the worst masseuse ever."

"Could be. Doubtful, though. Man, how great would it be to date a masseuse?"

"I don't know, probably wouldn't be all that awesome. I mean, how long would that magic last before they realize that going home just means more work?"

"Like strippers?"

"Very similar. I'd have to tell Will about Adrian, not use his name, of course, but tell him it'd just be a one-off and it probably won't go anywhere until I can fix myself up, pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again."

"Excellent use of Dorothy Fields lyrics."

"Thanks, I thought so."

The two fist-bumped before Gus took a turn that led them into a swanky neighborhood east of Santa Barbara. They were on their way to visit the former owners of Englers grocery store. Shawn had initially wanted to make the trek alone, on the Norton, and make a quick entrance, make a quick getaway. Gus wouldn't allow it. Shawn wasn't sure, but he supposed pity and fear had more to do with Gus's decision than friendship. But what was the root of friendship if it wasn't pity and fear? He gave a silent smirk at his own joke. The Piccards would likely know if someone fitting the description of The Body had been employed at Englers in the past. Thus leading to an identification, and Shawn would solve his part of the case.

It'd been Henry Spencer's comment yesterday that'd made Shawn consider it a possibility. People go where they're comfortable. And while Dad might've been talking about something completely different, the idea raised Shawn's awareness. What if The Body had gone to Englers merely because it'd been like home to him? Shawn hoped to find out.

Gus found the house, neither big nor small but at the higher end of middle-class. He parked off the driveway, on the street, beside the curb. Before exiting, Gus had suggestions.

"We'd better make some ground rules. First," he pulled his thumb from a fist to keep track, "we stick to the facts and tell them that we're helping the police identify a body. Second, we tell them that we liked Englers—wait, maybe that should go first. That should go first. So, first—"

"Gus, we've done this before. I think we know the plan. I have a third suggestion that we must absolutely abide by."

"What's that?"

"Dude, it's the Piccards. No Star Trek jokes."

"Deal. I hope they don't ask us for tea."

"Earl Grey, hot." Shawn was way ahead of him.

They got out of the car, headed for the front door. A boat was in the driveway, and while Gus got a good look at it, a small speeder, Shawn ignored it. Gus reminded himself that Shawn and Adrian were on boats a lot, Adrian's forest of cousins, and it seemed like every weekend Gus tried to get together, Shawn would text back that he was busy, send a photograph of the ocean crisp in its dark blue infinity, edged in the white trim of a boat. Occasionally, he'd get a selfie of Shawn and Adrian, or just of Shawn. Gus had sighed over the photos, pleased that Shawn had found someone to have a good time with, but overall uncertain—and he felt guilty about it, still. There was always something about Adrian he hadn't liked—maybe it was a few drinks the few times they met up—or the possessive way he handled Shawn, or the rumors that dangled just slightly out of earshot, whose words he could never entirely catch.

Shawn went to the door and rang the bell. It was a house newer and nicer than his dad's, and about three times bigger than Lassie's. "Hey, do you think they have a butler? It looks like the kind of house where they'd have a butler."

"I don't think they have a butler, or a whole compliment of servants. Just normal people enjoying their retirement. Did you see the boat?"

"Yeah," Shawn grumbled, and Gus knew he'd been right that Shawn would rather pretend it wasn't there, "I saw it. H'mm." Shawn pressed the doorbell again. No sound stirred, only the distant, faint delivery of the bell through the house. "No one's home. Shit, this sucks. I was really counting on their input. Now I just have to do more computer work, and you know I'd rather get my info on the streets! I thought our case would end right here, behind this ugly-ass turquoise door."

"It's more like sea blue."

"It's ugly."

"Yeah. I think you're right."

"About it being ugly? Of course I am."

"No, that they're not home. Let's go. How'd you find out who used to own Englers, anyway?"

They got back in the car, and it'd barely had time to gurgle and grunt before it started up again. Shawn considered lying, just saying that he remembered from when they used to go there as kids, Gus under protest because he'd found the clerk behind the counter "unsettling." It wasn't a complete lie—sort of like the lies he told the SBPD when he stumbled upon information or clues. He did remember, as soon as he heard their names again.

"Gave a shout to my real estate connection," he said, leaving it at that.

Gus realized what it meant, what name he did not say. It wasn't Adrian. It was a figure in Adrian's proximity. His sister, Brooke. It only occurred to him that it was Brooke, and it never occurred to him that he was placing too much emphasis on an assumption.

In truth, Shawn had actually talked to Firefighter Mike—you know, Officer Dobson's boyfriend that no one can remember the name of. Mike Alwin was a firefighter, had been for years. And if Shawn remembered nothing about his premiere week back in Santa Barbara, he remembered Gus and he laughing so hard at old jokes that soda shot through their noses—and he remembered the fire at Englers. The surprise and shock and sadness of it made the memory less deteriorated than, say, when he first saw his dad and their whole "moved back" and "moved away" stilted speech of stiltedness. Anyway—Mike Alwin owed Shawn Spencer. Mike had a sister, Marie—they sounded like the Osmonds—who thought her husband was cheating on her. Mike hired Shawn to look into it, even though, when originally offered the job, he turned it down. Mike's snide, "Why do straight guys _always _cheat?" made Shawn laugh so hard with its complicatedness, its entirely-not-true-at-all-ness, that he took the case immediately. Turned out, Mike was right: Marie's husband had been cheating, but not because he was _straight_. Mike had been more devastated than Marie. And Marie immediately took up with a friend of hers, a woman friend that she'd been spending a lot of time with. That made Mike feel a little better, saying, "Dammit, I always sort of knew!" And Dobson nearby, chuckling warmly at all of it, the strange cycle of sibling relationships. Dobson was an only child, as was Shawn. It was out of their range of understanding. Mike wanted to give Shawn a reward, and Shawn settled with repaying the favor sometime.

The time had come. He'd called Mike on the phone last night, after Brooke left, to ask about Englers. Mike had texted the owners' name to him, once he was able to get it. Shawn received the text, left it unread, while he and Lassie were still at IHOP. It was pretty easy from there. He was sorry the Piccards hadn't been home. It had promised to be an interesting conversation, the possibility of saying "tea, Earl Gray, hot" notwithstanding. Englers had been a staple in Santa Barbara for more than thirty-five years. It would be no wonder at all, and no great stretch of the human condition, for someone who'd worked there to want to go there if he thought he was dying.

Shawn had played scenarios around in his head. Between thoughts of Adrian, the aches and the anger, and his compelling dynamic with Lassiter, Shawn had tried to imagine what would compel The Body to go to Englers. It'd been deserted. Perhaps, after the fire—

Shawn could not get around one fact: The Body had died of natural causes. This was not a murder. There were no suspects. There was no scene of the crime. This was strictly a seek-and-identify kind of case. Shawn had only done this one other time in his life, and it was decidedly _not _for the Santa Barbara police. He had been successful then, but he'd had no outside thorns pressuring him the way he did now. There'd been no significant loss to muddle his way through. There'd been a girlfriend at the time, that was true, but she'd been a flippant, glossy, willing, good-time sort of woman, and nothing at all like Lassiter. What was her name? Shawn dug around for it in the holes and cubes of his memory. Name—name—what was her name? It was a jewel—it was a gemstone—sapphire—September. Her name had been September. And a name like that was just sort of a step above Carlton. And, if he were being honest with himself, and at that point he couldn't help but be honest with himself, Carlton was a better flirt. He held no talent for it, of course, but there was a genuineness to it that confounded Shawn. He liked the hesitation, the push-and-pull, the drops of self-hatred when the two of them pirouetted against one another. They _hated _liking each other, and that was the unusual appeal. Shouldn't it be something else? Shouldn't it be easier?

Shawn jerked, lifting his head off his hand. He was back in Mee Mee's. Gus had dropped him off forty-five minutes ago, and Shawn, not sure what to do, just fell on the bed. He'd dozed, keeping his dreams close to him in piecemeal images and soft words. Upon waking, they scattered like lightweight pips. He rolled over, stretched from fingertips to toes, and yawned lustily. He relaxed, every limb falling into stillness.

He hated the laundromat now. Gus had been right: it was like going backwards. How much longer was he going to stay? He missed something—homesick for a place—and wondered if it was his parents' house, or his uncle's house in the country, or if it was just the more prosaic homestead of the house on Sunberry Lane. _One of these days_ drifted through his mind like a real prediction, until it listed out and faded into his need to get up, to find his phone and find out where Lassiter was.

"Where are you?" he texted. He was still half-asleep and wouldn't have been at all surprised if his Beethoven's Fifth text sound drifted through the laundromat, and if he'd rolled over and found Lassiter sleeping on the other side of the bed.

He took a quick peek over his shoulder: emptiness. A couple of wrinkles in the blanket, no dent in the pillow. He could hear Masset chewing again, amid the usual thrum of traffic noise in the background. When no message arrived after he went to the bathroom, rubbed cold water on his face, he texted Lassiter again.

"Need to see you."

It sounded flirty, but that was just Shawn's aberrant imagination swinging him out of control. He had texted that to Adrian once, maybe twice, as a preliminary statement to come home so they could go to the bedroom. That had been hilarious—Adrian at his beck and call, because they were good at what they should be good at, if it lasted ten minutes or an hour. Adrian would go back to his office, and Shawn, if not on a case, would stay home. If on a case, he would go out and have Adrian drop him off at the bus station.

"You're going to have to quit one of these days," Adrian had told him just after they'd planned to part ways with a kiss. "I mean, if you want to. You can move your business down here. You've worked with the Ventura police before, haven't you?"

Yes, and the sheriff's department, the FBI, the—well, the list went on and on. Santa Barbara, though, it was his home. He was afraid Adrian might've seen a stampede of longing in his gaze, and Shawn quickly turned his head away. "I'll think about it," was all he said. "I'm good at this, you know, I'd hate to give it all up. Chief Vick needs me."

"You mean Lassiter needs you."

They were not going to have this argument again. Adrian had never gotten so jealous of anyone as he did of Carlton Lassiter. Shawn had explained and explained—explained to Drunk Adrian, explained to Sober Adrian, explained to Hungover Adrian that there was _nothing _between him and Lassiter expect insult-charged air, Chief Vick, Juliet O'Hara, and, and, and—"unresolved sexual tension," Adrian once threw on, smirking. Adrian persisted in the insane belief that Lassiter had the hots for him, "but I got you first."

It wasn't true that Lassiter had the hots for him. It was true, and Shawn noticed it right away, that in the last year Lassiter contacted him more often than he ever had the two years previous. As if he'd known, on some level, what Shawn was up to, where he was living, who he was living with.

Shawn's phone rang. He pulled it off the bed, between fluffy rolls of blue, and put it to his ear as he started the call. "Are you busy?"

"No," Lassiter said. "I'm at home. What's up? Did you have a good time with Juliet and Gus?"

Carlton had been making a solid effort to refer to his partner by her first name when talking with her friends. Shawn bit on his thumb, taking in these observations. He couldn't shut-off his sponge-like behavior just because Adrian had left him—or had he left Adrian? He was no longer certain.

"I have to see you, I—" He stalled, tired, realizing what it sounded like and how that brought back those funny arguments with Adrian that worked on them like foreplay, "I left my money in your car."

That was the true reality. Shawn had left the envelope with the money in it tucked beneath the seat of the Crown Vic.

"It's under the seat," Shawn hurried on. "I was going to ask you to take me to the bank today, but it seems that I forgot. And I left it there. Good thing it's in a cop's car. Nice and safe."

"Well," Carlton shoveled this idea around in his thoughts, "how much is it? Sounds like it's a lot. I recall you picking up an envelope before we left your place to go to breakfast, but I guess I didn't think about it, either. You don't have to tell me how much it is. It's all right."

Shawn wasn't entirely sure what was in there. "Two hundred in cash, and then a teller's check. I don't know what the teller's check is for. I mean, the amount. I know what it's _for_. It's for when we were going to buy a house, but we separated instead."

Shawn heard a door shut, the back screen door at Lassiter's house—his house—the one they were supposed to be living in together. But that was part of the reason that they had separated, that the fight had ensued, and Adrian's jealousy was ridiculous and heightened.

Lassiter was the only other person who knew that the house was going on the market soon. Shawn had told him so, thinking nothing of it, making a joke of it. He dug a further oblivion by telling Adrian about it, thinking nothing of it, making a joke of it. Adrian's ensuing wrath was colossal. Adrian's jealousy had caused them pain. _Shawn _had caused them pain. He never dreamed that Lassiter would actually want to buy the place, or that Adrian, fuming and writhing and hating Lassiter more than he ever did, would back out of the deal because he could not stand the fact that Shawn had betrayed their trust.

Lassiter opened the car door on the passenger's side. Immediately, his hand clasped something of familiar tactility. He pulled out the envelope. "It's here. Still here."

"Okay," Shawn answered weakly.

Lassiter wanted to ask if Shawn was all right, but he could hear the warbled pitch through the phone, and a sound of breathing strangled by emotions. "Are you at home? I'm coming over. I'll bring your money."

"All right," Shawn said, relieved, trying to push his way through one bad moment. He hung up, sat down on the bed, and stared into space. He willed Carmina Burana to play in his head.


	18. His Sobs Woke Jane

**XVIII. His Sobs Woke Jane**

It took an ominous and tricky thirteen minutes for Carlton to arrive, to bust his way through the front door that, mercifully, Shawn had been too lazy to lock. Shawn's head lifted, but he set it back down again. He was sprawled on his back, his hands cupped over each other on his abdomen. Somewhere music played. It sounded like ABBA—yet, oddly, not ABBA. An ABBA cover infiltrated the still and solemn air from Shawn's sixth appendage: his iPhone.

"Information Society," Shawn recited, wondering if Lassiter wondered. "Tommy Boy Records, 1988."

What other interesting tidbits were floating in Shawn's head? "This is why I won't play Trivial Pursuit with you. You have an eidetic memory."

"A good memory can be a curse," Shawn murmured in return, but he did not deny the eidetic memory bit. It wasn't true, but such a secret was a weapon. Something dangerous that Lassiter didn't know. Some assumptions were best used as spears and knives and escape routes. He stored that away for later, wiped a watery trace off the side of his eye. "I think Ingrid Bergman said that—or something similar."

Little white puffs decorated the bedspread, the floor. It took Lassiter a moment to realize the white puffs were wadded tissues. He collected a few, unafraid of Shawn's cooties. He could smell the place, too. A cross between faint fresh paint and mustiness. A window in the back could open, but Lassiter didn't touch it as he binned the wads in the only receptacle he could find in that place. He dropped the envelope on the bed next to Shawn's hip, close enough for Shawn to grab it, lift it to his eyes. He wanted to find a hint of anger or relief, but Shawn's gaze remained more bleak than blank.

"Do you want a ride to the bank, or are you okay getting there by yourself? They close at four."

"You know what bank—?"

"Oh, there's not much I don't know about you, Spencer."

Shawn remembered—wished again that he could forget. Hiking upward from the waist, he sniffed inward, got a nose full of tear-fresh snot, and rubbed his face. In the thirteen minutes it took to stop being alone, he had made a very difficult decision. He stopped the music on his phone. The apartment descended into an aching quiet. His vacant gesture indicated the area around him.

"Sit down, Lass. There's something I want to tell you."

In Carlton's gut, a bubble of anxiety bloomed like heavy steel flowers. He found a task chair, black and old, and sat in it. His heels ushered its sluggish wheels closer to the bed. Not too close. A distance was required to keep his sanity. Shawn looked ready for a guillotine.

Shawn saw Lassiter was not going to come any closer. He shifted over two feet on the bottom edge of the mattress. Unsure how to start, this was a confession without actually confessing anything he'd done wrong, only what _was_, and what _had been,_ he was more sad than nervous.

"There's something you don't know—something about me and Adrian and the house you're living in."

Carlton listened. It was improbable—but, to mess with the Shakespeare quote that came into his head—it was not improbable fiction. The house he had bought had been his only because of Shawn. He'd known that. Shawn had told him about the house. Shawn had practically picked it out, told him about it before it was officially on the market. Shawn had had a friend in the real estate business, and Lassiter later met her at the house, Rebecca Dijon-West. He hadn't known that Rebecca Dijon-West was friends with Adrian, that Adrian was also, by proxy, in the real estate business. There'd never been an Adrian before. He'd never heard about Adrian—never heard a thing. Let alone—

"Jealous?" Carlton finally said when Shawn reached the ellipsis at the end of his part of the story. "Jealous—of me? Of you and me? Come on! That's not—! You can't be—! You did tell him that—"

"Relax, I told him. When he was sober. When he was drunk. When he was hungover," he said aloud, repeating what had been repeating in his head for the last half-hour. "I kept telling him. And he never seemed to just—he just didn't really _get _it." The heat hit his nose again, turned his face red and his eyes to sorry pools. Adrian would not listen. There was nothing between him and Lassiter, but there was everything between him and Lassiter that, right then, Shawn wished had been between him and Adrian: trust, honesty, the truth of emotions. "Anyway, he was so angry at me, said I had ruined it by telling you, and he backed out. Even though it was everything," he paused with a heavy intake of breath, "everything in a house that we wanted. You're better off with it than we would've been. And now you know," he gave a feeble lift of his hand, "why I like being there so much. Even if there hadn't been an Adrian, and there isn't, I still liked that house."

Carlton held up the words Shawn had said, let them echo. _When he was sober. When he was drunk. When he was hungover. _So—that meant that Adrian had a drinking problem? Or was that Shawn's anger whisking his ex out of proportion? It happened. Anger was no emulsifier of facts, only distended them, occasionally righted when it started to recede to show the truth. He found a box of tissues behind Shawn, plucked one out, gave it to Shawn. "Adrian was an alcoholic?"

"Was—is—assume he is, still. A functioning one," said Shawn, bundling the used tissue and holding it in his moist palm, "the kind that doesn't see it, doesn't have a problem because he doesn't see it."

Sounded like a few people Carlton had known, a few he knew presently, some he'd been related to. He brushed his forehead free of the burden of this, pinched his eyes tightly closed. "Shawn—it isn't your fault. Okay? Not this stuff about this house. Not Adrian's drinking. Not even his jealousy about you and me." He paused to give a scoffing laugh at that. Shawn did not laugh back.

"I didn't notice it until the last few weeks or so," Shawn admitted, as if he, too, had been an alcoholic lingering at the edges of realizing it. He hardly drank. And the knowledge of what it could do to a person, make a dark shadow of him as he stood in a bright room, would likely turn him off of drinking for a while. Not forever, of course, but a while. "I wanted to tell you. I don't know if it's because I feel guilty—"

"You shouldn't feel guilty. You're not the one who did anything wrong."

Now Shawn laughed, merely a titter, a bounce of his shoulders, a quivering, half-finished grin. "That's funny. That's what he kept telling me. And you don't know what I did. You don't know what he said to me last Saturday."

_I would if you would _tell me! But he knew Shawn wouldn't. Sometime, maybe, he'd tell. For now, Lassiter had heard enough. "Come on," he got off the seat, grasped Shawn's hoodie by the hoodie, and hauled him upwards, "we'll get you to the bank. Let's get out of here. No wonder you don't like this place. It's dark and sort of dank, isn't it?"

"A little. Home sweet home." Shawn put the money in the back pocket of his jeans, Lassiter witnessing it should the envelope suddenly vanish. "Lass," he stopped a second, before they headed for the door, "the money—the money's from the house. It was my contribution. It was a paltry sum compared to what Adrian had saved up, but I was really proud of it."

"I'm sure you were," he said without sarcasm, only meaning it. "And maybe you'll get to use it." He jetted towards the door, turned back again to explain. "Just—not with Adrian. I already wanted to punch him in the face, and now I want to kick him in the nuts and throw him in the ocean."

"Kicking him in the nuts seems a little intimate."

"And what he did to you isn't? I've known you longer. I get to kick your exes in the nuts if I have to." He took Shawn by the hand without really thinking about it. Not because he was into Shawn, or practicing any maneuver that would augment Adrian's unfounded jealousy, but because Shawn had never seemed so tiny and helpless and pathetic, and he needed encouragement to get out the door. He squeezed the cold fingers until they squeezed back, and let go when they got the front of the car, about six feet later.

"I forgot to tell you," Shawn started to say as they headed for St. Andres, "that what you did this morning for Gus was really great. He told me that he came to you all freaked out—weeping—"

"More like openly sobbing," Carlton corrected.

"And you said you'd go with me instead."

"I was all for letting you go alone, don't make me better than I am."

That was what Shawn liked about Lassiter. He was bone-hard, yes, but beneath it all was a tendency to be more modest and less arrogant than presumed. Around his friends, Lassiter was at his best, at his truest and most endearing realness. In front of others, he could be a genuine asshole. "Why did you go with me?"

"I wanted to go to breakfast," he started to respond, then, finding it wasn't the whole story, bravely went on. "I knew you would need two people in there. You couldn't sneak away from the classroom on your own and go snooping around, could you? That wouldn't work. They'd get suspicious too easily. Two of us, though? Two of us could do it. I didn't realize that you'd sucker them into your charms and wiles so easily, or that I'd have enough time to look around a bit more while you explained your—your—chaotic imaginal realm. Do you have a bank branch preference?"

"The one by the Market," Shawn answered perfunctorily.

In due course, Shawn deposited his money at his preferred bank branch, the cash in his checking account, the savings back in his savings account. He'd saved out a hundred dollars to keep it open without any sort of penalty—and his mom had dumped fifty bucks into it just to help out. It was a mom thing. And now that the money was back where it belonged, he hoped it grew into bigger and beautiful things. Something more than the house that Lassiter lived in. He could do a nice thing for Gus and Jules, maybe, a good wedding present that they wouldn't expect from him. He could plan a trip—maybe in August or September, when it was hot and stuffy in southern Indiana and he could get away from all of this for a while.

Back in the Crown Vic, Shawn stayed still and Lassie didn't throw the car into drive just yet. Tentatively, Shawn said that he had a coupon for Mission Street Ice Cream, and, just as tentatively, Lassiter drove them there. It was a short trip, and Shawn found the coupon in his wallet. They used it on a banana split—it was the only thing Shawn wanted, and the only thing Carlton cared about was that Shawn got what he wanted, without actually admitting it. Sixty degrees and cloudy might entice others from chillier regions of the US to sit outside, but Lassiter didn't like the cold breeze off the ocean—it'd be a few weeks before it started to warm up—and Shawn was fine sitting inside. They ate the banana split talking about culture and Carmina Burana, Russian Lit and the next handgun Lassiter was thinking of purchasing. Shawn knew a little about guns, mostly rifles. His uncle had handguns, and Shawn himself had one—it wasn't really his but it was sort of his, since he used it every time he was in Indiana.

"Shooting locals, are you?" Lassiter teased.

"Nah, that's no fun. They always run away when they see me coming."

Lassiter chuckled, mixing pineapple and whipped cream on a spoon. "That does not surprise me. You have targets?"

"Uncle Fenz usually saves up cans and we shoot those off hay bales out in the back pasture. It's fun. You should come next time I go. All the riding you can stand, too. It's been a while since the horses were ridden more than, you know, once or twice a year. And you and Uncle Fenz can talk Civil War precepts well into the night—believe me, he's as much of a nerd as you are."

"Comforting. I'll consider it," he said, trying to imagine being anywhere with Shawn Spencer that wasn't Santa Barbara, or in this unlikely location of a quaint ice cream parlor, and sharing a snack. "As long as I don't have to play Trivial Pursuit."

"Ah, someday, Lass, you will cave. You will join the Dark Side, Jedi Carlas Tonter."

"Never, Enser Shawpen!"

"I can feel the anger in you."

"That's my bladder, have to go the restroom."

Shawn smirked as Lassiter got up from the table. At least, money back in the bank and ice cream in his tummy, along with a healthy dose of banana, he was feeling better. Even when he was handling the cash, he didn't think about how Adrian had probably touched it, that it might be the last thing the two of them handled. Until—

Lassiter swept into the seat again, and they finished the banana split. Shawn was entertained by Lassiter's quirky tales of the Civil War, little stories that he had never heard before. Shawn had known that people stood on the rooftops in Charleston to watch the battle at Fort Sumter, but he hadn't heard the tale of the drunken fist fight at Congress in 1858 as they debated the statehood of Kansas.

"Wait, why were these guys drinking?" Shawn queried. "Upstanding citizens, polished American politicians, shouldn't be drunk on the job!"

"It was well after midnight," Carlton said, "and they were drinking just to stay awake while the debate went on. Well, the better angels of their nature did _not _prevail—and a fight broke out."

Shawn winced his eyes at Lassie. "Is that really true?"

"I swear," he said, raising his right hand, "it's a true story. Are you ready to go?"

"As ready as ever."

"Thanks for buying."

"Have to take my best guy out once in a while. Anyway, I'm, like, totally rich now."

Carlton thought the idea of having an extra two hundred dollars as making Shawn Spencer "rich" was kind of endearing. "I have a feeling you've lived at the bottom of your piggy bank most of your life."

"You could say that—and you'd be right. Even when I was a kid, my parents made me earn everything. Character building, they called it. And I have lots of character."

That was inarguable. Instead of taking Shawn home, Lassiter drove them to the Museum of Natural History. They couldn't stay too long, the place closed at 5, and Shawn was surprised that it was nearly 4:00 when they got there. It was a fun hour, and they were the last ones out. The curator and guard watched them go with flint in their eyes. It made Shawn laugh, like they'd done something uniquely unlawful, as they headed to the car. With plenty of daylight left, they ended up in Montecito, at Lotusland, where Shawn hadn't been since returning to the city. It was a cross between a garden and a museum. The amount of succulents alone was enough to make Lassiter rather giddy. Shawn had to rein him back from fantasyland.

Now only a couple of miles from Sunberry Lane, it was natural for Carlton to return to the house. Shawn was relieved to walk through the back door, catch the odors that he was more familiar with, more comfortable with, than the dank and mustiness of the laundromat. He sprawled, belly first, on the dining room floor. Lassiter used his long legs to lift himself over the body there, and landed in the kitchen. His own succulents, his "little pets," as Shawn called him, were fine on the windowsill over the sink.

"We don't have much to drink. Want some water?"

Shawn rolled to his back, staring at the speckled ceiling. "I can make iced tea."

"We don't have any."

"We do." He rolled to his side to see into the kitchen. A layover of cells, the past with the future, Lassiter in the kitchen and Shawn haggling with him about domestic things. "It's in the cupboard by the fridge. No—for real. Ugh—I'll make it."

He watched Shawn work magic with five tea bags—he did have regular tea bags and had had no idea—and throw in one peach flavored herb tea bag that must've been added to his collection from his ancient days with Victoria, or it was an item O'Hara had brought over. The end result was tasty, but it was too cold now to sit in the back yard. They stayed in the impersonal dimness of the kitchen.

"When's your date with Will?"

"At seven-forty-five," Shawn replied, dumping used tea bags into the bin. He liked the smell of used tea bags—sort of clean, refreshing, like Lassie's eucalyptus body wash.

"That's an odd time for a date. Are you meeting him? He picking you up?"

"We're meeting at the restaurant. He gets off work at seven-thirty and will be ready to meet up by then. Ergo, odd date commencement time."

Lassiter remembered that he'd sent Dobson and McNab to follow Shawn around that evening. They were both off the clock at nine. He trusted that Shawn could handle himself when it came to Will, and the rest was nobody's business but their own.

Shawn put the pitcher of tea in the refrigerator. It was void of magnets on the front, and Lassiter didn't keep many personal mementos around. He had a few in the guest room, not exactly a place open to the public. Shawn had guessed it was his mom and dad in one photo, his sister in another, and there was one of him and Victoria on their wedding day. It was still framed, but sitting flat, glass towards the shelf, ashamed it existed.

He thought of Adrian again, making him feel ashamed of his own mistakes. "You know what sucks?" he started to say, then doubted the sagacity of the upcoming statement. What the hell, though, right? He could say it now and mean it. "I hate Adrian for making me second-guess my friendship with you. I think that's what makes me so angry. Is hate just anger?"

"I think it's a lot of things. It's a lot of things—and sometimes those things aren't a waste of time to feel. Hate can be, you know, hate, anger, guilt, embarrassment, longing— I'm glad you can recognize what he did to you. Maybe you can take that and start to heal."

Shawn wasn't sure—it seemed like a foreign concept, one he would need time just to get used to, let alone implement. But what did that mean? Had Adrian been _trying _to turn Shawn against Lassiter, against the SBPD, his work, his friends? It seemed unlikely. Lassiter—yes, all right—maybe—Shawn could see that, even believe it. "His jealousy was way, way out of line."

"I'm not disagreeing," Lassiter said, quiet and still outwardly, trembling a bit inside. "I'm on your side, Shawn. And when it counts, I will always be on your side. The thing about Adrian, and guys like Adrian, is that they're jackasses. They use people until they can't be used anymore, until the use has been wrung out of them. Or they get too independent."

By a hardness and vulnerability in Shawn's eyes, that came and went with a flash, Lassiter knew he was on to something.

So that's what it was. Shawn had been too independent. Shawn had worked for the SBPD, and he liked it, and Adrian had wanted him closer to home. Away from Carlton Lassiter, well, that wouldn't have hurt any. Carlton's arms crossed even tighter over his middle.

"You should always do what you want to do, Shawn, and don't let anyone tell you that your dreams, your _work_, what you _do,_ that it isn't worthwhile. Adrian was just trying to find a way to let it make sense to him. Why do you like working with the cops, with the SBPD? He couldn't believe that it was because you liked what you did, that you genuinely wanted to help people. So—"

"It had to be you," Shawn muttered, getting it—really _getting it_. "Oh, my God—he made it all up because it was the only thing that made sense to him."

"People are idiots. Men in love are the biggest idiots of all. Adrian was an idiot in the wrong way. Me. I've done stupid shit because of love—believe me. Yourself included. But we don't mind. We're not like Adrian. He didn't want to be an idiot because of love. It went against his character. But you didn't mind. I don't mind. That's what makes us better than him. We _want _to do stupid things because we're in love. That's what makes love worthwhile—it makes us live outside ourselves and our own pathetic self-expectations. You get it?"

"Yeah," Shawn said, playing absentmindedly with his too-long hair, "yeah—I think so." For the first time in over a week, he was almost feeling _sorry _for Adrian. Maybe pity was a stepping stone to forgiveness and forgetfulness, too. At least Lassie helped him feel less sorry for himself.

"Now—how do you feel? Good? Okay? Pep talk over?"

Shawn smiled, letting it grow and bring color to his cheeks. He thought about the little bug that Carlton had saved from the car that morning, and how much that'd meant to him. He felt the same sense of freedom and release and hope that he'd felt then. There were decent men out there. Carlton was one of them. Maybe Will would be. Maybe there'd be someone else for him eventually—man, woman, he didn't care. Just someone decent, that loved him, that let them have important talks of emotional things while standing in the kitchen.

Unembarrassed by what he'd said—didn't he just admit that love made him an idiot?—Carlton gave Shawn a slap at the shoulder. He hailed him to follow. "We never finished _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly _the other night. When it's over, I'll take you home so you can meet Will later. And don't wear that." He fanned a finger across Shawn's baggy old blue jeans and terminally ill green hoodie. "Please, don't wear that."

"Most of my nice clothes are in a box."

"One box?"

"I don't have that many nice clothes."

"I'll lend you something, you damn man-child. There's something you can buy with your extra money: a nice suit."

"Sounds ominous. Like an omen. Suits equal funerals in my head. Anyway, if it were up to me, you know what sort of suit I would get."

Lassiter's eyelids dropped down, reopened wider than ever in surprise, in shock. "My mind just exploded. So many potential disasters!"

"Come on," Shawn said, half-seriously, "you know it'd be a white sport jacket with white linen trousers and a pink t-shirt."

"Ah," Carlton understood, "Crocket: _Miami Vice_. Yes, of course. Please," he gave a shake of his head to the pathetic being in front of him, who would not be happy until it was socially acceptable to cosplay as an adult in the working world, "don't do that."

"Huh! We'll just see! It's _my _money, after all! Meanwhile," a little more modest now, "I won't say no to you lending me something."

"Good, remind me when the movie's over."

He hit Play on the remote, and they were back in Sergio Leone's world, exactly where they'd been just a couple of days ago.


	19. The Death Dealing Rings

**XIX. The Death Dealing Rings**

Gus's feelings of inferiority were complex and difficult to comprehend. When Juliet suggested that they have a "journal night," he demurred to her calculating wiles. It was, after all, supposed to be a way for them to work through their emotions without judgment: the sort of judgment they looked for in one another, or the unique, internal judgment they placed on themselves. It had helped them solve problems in the past, such as the uncertainty of explaining their relationship to their friends. At that time, Juliet had written that Carlton and Shawn were their friends, who'd love them anyway, and that they should tell them. Maybe, to execute this, they could have a fancy dinner, the kind with candles on the table in Liberace candlesticks, a touch of the vintage and a splash of glamor—make it look as though Mindy Weiss or David Tutera had planned the whole thing. It was while journaling that Juliet and Gus brainstormed the whole "swamp monster" storyline that brought their relationship and engagement to the forefront. It had, of course, started out as a "We should do..." joke that was exactly the opposite of what they'd really wanted to do. I mean, it was "Swamp Monster" verses "Mindy Weiss-style dinner party." But the Swamp Monster Case made them laugh so hard, on the couch in their apartment, where they were now sitting, that they had to go through with it. Besides, at a dinner party, all they could've done to bring Shawn and Carlton together was sit them next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. At least with the Swamp Monster, Shawn and Carlton needed to work together. Except for the fact that they _almost_ _didn't_, and the whole thing _almost_ _didn't _happen at all...

Gus and Juliet had a light repast of stuffed tomatoes baked to perfection, and a side of roasted chickpeas with herbs, and a nice white wine. They journaled as they ate, writing ideas down in their composition books—Gus's was green, Juliet's was yellow—when those ideas came. At the end of the meal, they took wine glasses, composition books, and about-to-be-revealed secrets into the living room. Wine glass down, Juliet had to clear from the sofa cushion a retro dress pattern she'd been cutting out, with the dream of a suit that would've looked great on Claudette Colbert in _Since You Went Away_, and Juliet thought it'd look good on her, too. Gus sat on the sofa's other end. He was mending a hole in the armpit of one of his pajama shirts, where the seam had gotten too close to the end of the fabric. His meticulous approach to mending meant that it was not quite finished by the time the chickpeas were done. He scooted the bundle of blue to the coffee table.

They were not allowed to talk until they'd read each other's entries. The silence was often refreshing, and there was no pressure on them to speak. They imagined that it was a Godly, almost monastic freedom, not having to talk and repressing the natural inclination to do so.

The exchange was completed without much ado. Juliet got a green composition book in her hands, and Gus had the yellow one. They opened to the latest entry, just a few pages in. Juliet had written in her preferred purple-ink Pentel RSVP RT. It was pretty against the white, blue-lined paper, in her swirly, gentle handwriting that moved like water. Gus used his favored Pentel LiquiGel pen in bright green—he liked his composition book and the interior ink to match as closely as possible. When they started hanging out together, before the date that turned into their first "date," they laughed about their common adoration for Pentel pens. They were a Pentel household. The day Juliet moved in, she'd presented them with a shadowbox she'd made of old Pentel pens she'd been collecting since high school. It hung on the wall between the living room and the kitchen, a keepsake, a reminder.

Juliet hiked up her knees to keep Gus's composition book there while she read. It was a short entry. His handwriting was precise, a mixture of cursive and print, like hers. But his was smaller, took up less space, and there were small hooks where he didn't quite lift up the pen nib in time before he moved it to form the next letter, the following word. She would know his handwriting anywhere—as ubiquitous to her world now as his shoes that he always left in the way by the door, the One Random Sock of his that she always found under the bed on laundry day, and how, if they got separated at Target, she knew to find him in Office Supplies. Gus could always find her in Intimates.

He was remorseful. That was apparent in his entry. His inability to bond with Shawn yesterday bothered him, left him feeling isolated, incubating feelings of guilt. If Carlton had not said he would take Gus's place, Gus might've been persuaded to go. But that was only augmented by their brief time together yesterday afternoon. He was filled with a panic. He'd wanted to talk to Shawn about his insecurities, but knew that Shawn's hurts were, at present, too big. They squashed Gus's worries. He couldn't flaunt his impending marriage, and its potential downsides, when Shawn had just gotten out of a relationship. He worried about Shawn. He worried what would happen to him in the future—after their wedding date in August. What was Shawn going to do? Juliet didn't have the answers.

"Hey," she said, sticking her toes, in socks with little ice cream cones on them, against his thigh. He looked up from his reading, and the two of them offered one another gentle smiles. She closed the composition book, moved forward, looking him right in the eye. She was so full of seriousness that Gus's senses tingled, and, for a second, he stopped breathing to hold it in, out of fear and respect. He knew when life-changing moments arrived. "There's something I want to tell you."

_Oh no, _he thought. What had he said in the entry to bring this on? He didn't want to hear it, really. His blood curdled, his throat tightened. He was suddenly nauseous. He stayed still, eyebrows up in expectation and fear.

"It's not about you," she said, "me or you, me and you. It's about Shawn—Shawn and Carlton."

"Oh," he said, losing his glassy-eyed expression. He curled back towards his fiancée with an openness and willingness. "What about them? Did you find out what they were up to today?"

"A little," she said, still serious. She pulled back. "Look, I don't know how to tell you this because I don't know how you'll react to it, because it's a little—I acted a little—a little underhanded."

"Oh? Wow, I'm intrigued. My mind reels that you could ever think of yourself as underhanded. Do go on."

"It is underhanded. But I did it anyway. I knew that McNab and Dobson were working this afternoon. A ten-hour shift. They're still at work, working until nine tonight."

"Yeah," he said at this natural pause. "Continue."

"And this afternoon, I, um, called McNab and had him keep an eye on Shawn."

His eyelids narrowed, speculating. "That's interesting. It never occurred to me to—" He cut himself off, instincts roiling. "Wait a second! What's this have to do with Shawn _and _Carlton?"

"Not long after you dropped him off at the laundromat, Carlton showed up there."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She still couldn't tell how Gus felt about this. "And then they went out. The bank, um—"

"Oh, that's right. Shawn mentioned something about needing to go to the bank. Completely forgot about it. Good, I'm glad Lassiter took him. What else?"

"You seem very interested all of the sudden."

Gus lifted a shoulder. "It's Shawn. I felt terrible leaving him. He's looked awful this week. I guess I would too if I lost the love of my life."

Juliet wondered if that's really what Shawn's problem was: Had Adrian Harris-Collins really been at the center of Shawn's despair? Unable to logic out that riddle, it'd been on her mind all week without an answer in sight, she went on with more enthusiasm. It helped that Shawn and Carlton's movements, those that were done together, brought Gus to her side of things. "After the bank, they went to the Museum of Natural History—"

"But that place closes at five o' clock! I doubt they had any time to look around!"

"True—they left when the place closed, then went to Lotusland."

The two of them eyed one another, and said, at the same time: "Succulents!" And laughed.

"Then what?" Gus had already told her about Shawn's business-date with Will from For Keeps massage. Shawn was probably getting ready to head over to the restaurant. Or, knowing Shawn, at 7:22 PM he was just getting out of the shower. Her little simper and impossibly ornery glow told him what had happened next. He was not enthused. "They went back to Lassiter's, huh?"

"So it seems."

"That's it," Gus said, grabbing his phone from the coffee table, "I'm texting him! I want to know if he's still going on that date!"

Juliet didn't try to stop him; she was too curious about it herself.

Shawn's phone blurted from its spot on the couch. Carlton glanced at it. His own phone had been ringing periodically throughout the day, and he'd been ignoring it. But this was Shawn's phone. He stared at it, full of an ancient curiosity mingled with a sense of protectiveness. If it was Adrian—what if it was Adrian? Carlton couldn't get it out of his mind, that spiel Shawn had given about Adrian's jealousy. He so, so, _so _wanted to believe that Shawn had made it up, but the emotional wrinkles in Shawn had been undeniable at the time he told the tale, and Carlton knew the truth when he saw it. Even if the truth came from Shawn, whose honesty, most days, was stuck between clouds and fog. It was always just warped enough to make it beyond recognition.

With Shawn in the shower down the hall, and Carlton able to hear it, he felt safe picking up the phone. For a private detective, Shawn did not lock his phone. Carlton remembered once that Juliet had chided him on this absence of security. "What are they going to do?" Shawn had retaliated. "Order the _Fifty Shades _box set off Amazon? Can't happen. I already own it and Amazon will know and they'll refund me, and case closed. Come on! Security is for the insecure! I prefer my jeans more secure than my phone!" It had made Carlton snicker at the time—they'd been having lunch at Tom Blair's—and now he was thankful that even a breakup hadn't made Shawn rethink his iPhone security strategy.

Unlike the previous text, two minutes ago, that was from Henry Spencer, this one was just a text from Gus. Lassiter did not read it except for the preview on the screen. He dropped the iPhone and answered Gus using his own phone.

"Yes, he's still going on the date."

"Why are you answering the text I sent to Shawn's phone?"

"He's in the shower. I wanted to be sure it wasn't ... you know."

"Ah, yeah. Gotcha. He still at your place?"

"Yeah. I'm going to drop him off by the restaurant whenever he's ready to go. He'll probably be late."

"You're dropping him off?" Before he sent that text, which was invasive enough, he'd deleted the statement "That's weird." He didn't want to rile Carlton Lassiter's _feelings _at all. Like they were all idiots who couldn't see what was happening, who were supposed to be ambivalent to the whole thing. As good and healthy and well-adjusted adults, they were properly ignoring it. Phrases like "their closeness..." and "what the hell is going on..." and "those two..." only seemed to be popping off in Gus's and Juliet's heads, not Shawn's or Carlton's—neither in first- nor third-person.

"I am. Unless you wanted to do it. How else is he going to get there? I am NOT lending him my car."

"Oh, I see. He doesn't have the bike out there."

"Bingo." Carlton didn't pretend that he was happy about dropping Shawn off for a date. Truth be told, in his wee heart of hearts, it bothered Lassiter. It was awkward.

It was a little more awkward when Shawn emerged from the bathroom all clean, polished, smelling nicely of aftershave. He looked better in a newer pair of jeans that had been mysteriously tucked away in the guest room closet—at that point, Carlton had rolled his eyes and wondered what else Shawn had "tucked away" at the house, like a dormouse readying itself for hibernation. Carlton had lent Shawn a pale orange shirt—Shawn had said it looked like a creamsicle and wondered if Will would try to lick him later, and at that point Carlton had rolled his eyes as well. But now Shawn looked put together and almost perfect, except for his hair that still had to be cut, now hanging over the elfish tips of his ears and pathetically swooped back with whatever substance he'd found in Carlton's bathroom that could accomplish such a thing. Shawn hadn't found anything miraculous, he'd only been smart enough to leave a haircare product behind. He couldn't go out of the house without slightly perfect hair. It simply wasn't done. When Shawn made grumblings to that effect, Lassiter wondered aloud why it was that Shawn often showed up at a crime scene or at the station "looking like you just got out of bed." It was a _look_, Shawn had defended, grabbing his keys, his wallet, and feeling that he was forgetting something. A coat, he guessed. It was too chilly that night to wander around in a shirt with a t-shirt underneath.

He turned around to ask Lassiter if he could borrow a coat, only to find one hooked on a forefinger. It was leather, did not dangle stiffly, but hung there limply. Shawn took it, and the leather was soft and squished in his hands. It smelled like a recent cleaning and conditioning. It was vintage, that was easily determined, but it fit all right and was of a classic bomber cut that didn't go out of style. Even Lassiter had to hold on to things, Shawn guessed. More than the Russian Lit books, too, with someone else's name in them. It was possible the coat had belonged to Lassiter, but more likely it'd been Victoria's, or the name in the books—

Carlton hadn't worn it in years. Victoria had always been on him to get rid of it. It was a morbid reminder. Those were as handy to have around, too, as mementos that only protected and shielded and offered a buffer from the bad. He couldn't help getting gruff with Shawn. It was his own defense. "If you mess up that jacket, Spencer, so help me—I will find a way to kill you that looks like an accident. And I'm a cop, I can do things like that." Not entirely seriously, yet feeling it for a split second that surged through his system, he gave Shawn a hearty clap on the shoulder. "Ready to go?"

It _was _awkward, Shawn finally decided. He'd been debating the awkward level in his inner monologue since Lassie offered to lend him a nice shirt. Now that most of his upper torso was covered in Lassie bits, Shawn knew it was awkward that this was happening. Not only was he doubting his ability to entertain Will Lissner, and Shawn half-panicked that, with the similarity of their last names, he'd wind up calling Will something like Lissie, but Shawn wasn't sure he could stand Lassiter dropping him off in front of the restaurant, either. He requested, and was granted, being dropped off the next street north. That broke most of the tension. He wasn't sure what to say when it came time to leave the vehicle, either. How would he get home? Back to the laundry basket, to Lassiter's? To his dad's? His dad had texted him while he'd been in the shower, and Shawn didn't answer yet. If Dad got it in his head— Shawn trembled in frustration, squeezed his eyes shut, and felt sheltered in the dim light of the car.

Lassiter thought that niceness made things easier between them. "Call if you need a ride."

"Thanks."

"Unless that Norton of yours shows up. You know what that thing reminds me of? Hagrid's bike from _Harry Potter_."

Shawn snickered, finally undoing the safety belt clipped at his hip. "I get that."

"No, I'm serious. I mean, it shows up everywhere, like it has a mind of its own. I never know where it is one moment to the next. It's part magical, right?"

Shawn didn't know if they were still talking about the bike. A switch in the energy of the car told him that Lassiter had _meant _to imply the bike, the bike only, but had somehow veered into the bike's owner. "I get that," he repeated, "because the bike actually belonged to Sirius, not Hagrid. Hagrid just ended up with it somehow."

Lassiter let that sink in, not sure what was what. "Have a good date."

Shawn made a listless hiss, getting out of the car. He shut the door behind him, walked in the opposite direction. He could hear the engine disappear around the corner. Even that part of Santa Barbara, a couple of blocks from the Psych office, seemed oddly foreign to him. Nonetheless, mind removed from most of reality, he found his way to the restaurant.

Will had already been seated, and the host seemed to know who Shawn was looking for. Several booths in the capacious space were built into their own little chambers, walled from the back of the booths up to the ceiling. Will was in one of these, looking rather small as he toyed with the straw in his dark soda. He raised his gaze when Shawn appeared. Shawn was still afraid that he wouldn't know what to talk about. He took off his coat, it was a little warmer in the restaurant than he was expecting, and set it down—very gently, as if it was made of glass—in the empty space next to him.

Pleasantries were spoken.

Will had dressed decently in a loose shirt of strange fabric that made Shawn want to be very tactile. Will's hair was combed, sleek, lifted off his forehead in a little mess, as was the trend that year. Shawn's hair was less of a mess than usual, but he was self-conscious of his shiny, long locks all the same. Why had he not remembered to get a haircut? A subconscious tactic, he thought. Adrian had liked his hair shorter, and now Shawn endeavored to do the exact opposite of what Adrian had wanted. He would've hated Shawn spending so much time with Lassiter. He would've hated that he was sitting across a table in a private booth from a cute guy who'd asked him to dinner. Whether that was business or pleasure, Shawn wasn't sure. It might be halfway through the meal by the time he really knew.

"Thanks for asking to meet with me," Shawn blurted out, after just dislodging them from the topic of the cool weather and rambles about Santa Barbara not living up to California meteorological ideation. Business? Pleasure? Either or neither, it was going to be an interesting way to spend an hour or two.

"Yeah, thanks for agreeing," Will said. He drew his elbows on the table, one arm gently lying over the other. His expression was one of deep thought. When his eyes rose up, he'd made a decision—Shawn just didn't know what that decision was. "Look, um—I know who you are. You're Shawn Spencer."

Shawn had that creepy feeling hit him, first in his gut, then at his knees, and lastly in his throat. "Sorry—what?"

"I know you're Shawn Spencer," Will repeated, but he was light and airy—with a shred of seriousness that spooked Shawn even more. "And I know the guy with you this morning was Carlton Lassiter."

It was going to be an interesting evening, just more interesting than Shawn had thought, and a whole lot sooner than he'd thought, too.


	20. The Evening Out

**XX. The Evening Out **

Will knew who he was. He wasn't Frederic du Dauphin. He was Shawn Spencer.

Of course—perhaps he'd been in the papers too much, and didn't think to hide his face when photographers snapped pictures. Not like Sherlock as portrayed by RDJ in the 2009 film—and Shawn was pissed at himself for not being clever enough, for being too arrogant—

Naturally, Will would recognize him. And Lassiter was often all over television or in the newspapers, much to his outward chagrin, his inward glee.

"We weren't investigating the place or casing the joint," Shawn said, not entirely sure where to go with this stream of news. Quickest date in history, that was certain. He would _not _call Lassiter in five minutes, when Will walked out, angry for having been lied to. Shawn figured he could walk around downtown for a half-hour or so, at the very least, before he called anyone for a ride. He could, in theory, even walk to the Psych office, or back to his apartment, from there. But he had a feeling that Lassiter wouldn't want to be separated from the coat for more than a few hours. He'd be happiest knowing it was back in the closet where it belonged. "I'm sorry we lied—we were trying to do an investigation, but we—"

"I know you work for the police," Will interrupted with a gentle, apologetic wave of the hand, "but that's not exactly why I know you."

Shawn steadied himself. Odd. He didn't really have that many friends, they couldn't have someone in common— But in a kind of intuitive flash, Shawn knew. He studied Will, hoped he was wrong. Every muscle and nerve in his body tightened. He wanted to say something, but all he could think to say was _ohgod_, _ohgod_, _ohgod_—and that was not productive or polite or even helpful.

Will spoke it calmly, with an air of the pathetic and maimed and brokenhearted. "You were Adrian's boyfriend."

And there it was. And Shawn wanted to die. "You know him."

Will fidgeted, picked up a shiny butter knife—also maybe acting subconsciously—and played with it. "I dated him, too. Not as seriously as you. But, yeah," there was still hurt and misery, "I'm surprised we didn't run into each other."

Shawn wanted to know how that would've happened. Will was merciful enough to answer before the destructive conclusion plopped into Shawn's brain.

"We stopped seeing each other in September."

Shawn's brain hurt almost as much as his chest, in the hollow where his heart should be. Everything echoed within him, through seasons of joy and despair, until he could find a way to push through falling leaves and Christmas, through springtime and the chill of May air. September—that was a long, long time after they had decided to be exclusive. What an adult word: _exclusive_. All adult words are full of lies. There was no such thing. Shawn's fingertips went into his hair as he hung his head down. It was true. He had cheated. Just like everyone said.

And it was as Shawn predicted: the shortest date in history.

Will saw that Shawn was shaking—not in convulsions of anguish or anything, but trembling, as if he'd just come into a windy room after being out in the rain. "Maybe you should put your coat on. I'll get you some hot tea." He didn't apologize for saying it as he rose to speak to the bartender. Even his legs were weak as he made that short walk and back again. Shawn had put the coat on, his stare unmoved from the tabletop. Will felt badly—how could he not? But the truth was the truth. And there was more to tell, too. Will wanted to make the most of this. He didn't know if he'd get another opportunity.

"It is nice to actually meet you," he started to say, hoping to keep this light. He wriggled in the seat. "Now I have someone to talk to about what a drunken and disorderly and bastardly bastard Adrian actually is. If you don't want to, that's fine, too. How do you like your tea? Let me guess. Honey? And, if you're feeling lavish, a splash of cream."

Will had guessed correctly, and Shawn nodded his assent. He hadn't noticed the tea's arrival, but a pterodactyl singing Pet Shop Boys could've flown overhead and Shawn wasn't sure he'd see it. "How long have you known?"

"That you existed? Uh—let me think," he slouched a little as he thought, had stopped stirring the tea, "he didn't call me the night he went to his cousin Sissy's graduation party, so I figured something was up then. I guess that's when he met you. Or do you mean, sorry—you meant when you walked into For Keeps the other day, right? I already knew. Nice aliases, though. Cute."

Shawn was satisfied to see Will blushing at the error. It must've been hard on him, too, and Shawn sympathized. After all, Will had been with Adrian first. "I knew he was seeing someone else at the time, but he didn't talk about it a lot." He sounded subdued and half-asleep. The tea helped warm his insides, frozen in this hell of truth. He palmed his forehead. "How did you two meet—and when?"

"In April," Will said. He half-heartedly looked at the menu, and when the server stopped by he ordered them a plate of appetizers. "In April when he stopped to talk to me when I was at work. I worked at a Vons in Ventura at the time. I didn't move to Santa Barbara until September. Which is why I think he stopped seeing me. Well, other than you, of course."

Shawn didn't mind that, his mind latched to one factoid. "Which Vons?"

Will wondered why this mattered. "The one on East Harbor Boulevard. Do you know it?"

Instead of feeling stupid and sorry for himself, Shawn actually started to laugh. "Yeah," he said with another laughing spasm, "yeah, I know it. I'm sorry," he began, "if things were bad for you—"

"Hell no they weren't!" Will replied rapidly. "Best thing that happened to me, really. I decided to get out of my comfort zone, applied for this job up here, left Vons, left Ventura, and ditched bad memories of Adrian—all within two weeks! But you're not still with him." Will could sense that Shawn didn't understand the remark. "Brooke helped me find my apartment. She's nice. Probably the nicest one in the family."

"Agreed," Shawn said, giving a slight nod. He wasn't into this. He wasn't ready to share stories and talk about how horrible Adrian was, what he was like when he was drunk, which was often, or what he was like when he was sober, which wasn't too often. Shawn had stopped painting stars and halos around Adrian, but he feared that too much anger too quickly would cause him to lose perspective. He could go back to what he'd been thinking before he met Adrian, or even one of their latest fights, the fight that helped end it all. He just wasn't ready. Meeting Will, knowing these things, were catapults and trebuchets he didn't want. "We just separated a week ago. And, no, I wouldn't go back to him if he asked me. And, yes, he was mean to me. He said things about me that I never thought he'd say, not even my worst enemy, whoever that would be. But I'm just not ready to talk trash about it yet."

"No, of course not," Will said. "I hadn't realized it was so soon. But, if you ever are ready—sometimes it helps. To talk to someone that knew the same person you did. What he was like. What he was capable of." Will touched his left cheek, where it glowed with healthy, youthful skin.

Shawn wanted to ask—he _burned _to ask—but the answer was too terrifying. He could imagine Adrian doing it, though, when he was stupid enough and tired enough. It wasn't when he'd been drinking that he was capable of it, but when he was irritable, tired, hungover. Shawn feared hungover Adrian more than drinking, happy Adrian. He changed the subject. "Why didn't you tell me that you knew who I was?"

"I don't know," Will said calmly. "I figured you had a reason. I thought maybe you were there to spy on me. That Adrian had told you what'd happened."

"We're just—just working a case. That's all."

Will didn't pursue it. He nodded, accepting that. "So, are you really a reiki practitioner?"

"Yes," Shawn said. He repeated what he'd told Lassie, that it happened in 1999, that it was while he was in Texas and bored at a college there. "I didn't lie about that. Or about the imaginal realm stuff. I wrote a paper on it for a psychology class I took."

"You must've gotten an A."

"Nope," Shawn said, shaking his head. "Got a C. Told me I didn't use enough sources. The alias was really the only fake thing about me. And Gus—Branch Von Hazel—isn't my assistant. We run Psych together. More Gus than me, really. He does more of the paperwork and stuff."

"That was another reason I wanted to meet you for dinner. Other than the whole Adrian thing. And you're super cute. And I was hoping I might be able to hire you to find someone for me."

The astonishments of the evening—of the last half-hour—really couldn't get more intense, could they? Let's recap: First, he finds out that Adrian _had _cheated on him with someone that he conveniently didn't stop seeing a decent three months into his relationship with Shawn. Second, he finds out that Will was still friends with Brooke. Third, Will might've gotten walloped on the side of the head with Adrian's open hand. Adrian wouldn't risk punching anyone with a closed fist, it'd hurt too bad. And, fourth and last, Will wants to hire him for a job.

That was a lot.

Nothing he couldn't handle.

"Yeah, I'm available. Who is it?"

"I don't know his name."

"Then it's likely that I won't get far."

"Well, I mean, I have the receipts for his company and stuff, back at the office, so I'm sure you can find out that way."

That was a lead he could take. "Okay—go on. I'm listening."

"It's the guy who comes to take care of our fountains. Washes them out and puts in fresh water. Tends the motors. We have six fountains. The big one in the atrium, a somewhat smaller one in the Lavender Room, and then the rest are in the client rooms, where we work. Anyway, I haven't been there too long, so I don't know his name or anything. And he's usually there on Wednesdays, and Wednesdays I don't work because I have most of my classes then. I just know he hasn't been in at all over the last two weeks, and no one else at the office thinks it's weird. Just me. And, well, Adelaide, too. I told her about it and she said that I should look into it. I called the place from the phone number on the receipt, but no one's answered and there's no answering service or anything. I drove by today, but it looks closed up and the door was locked. It seems dodgy, at the very least. He always took really good care of our fountains, even if he was a scraggly, wiry, unkempt looking fellow. I only saw him twice."

"Do you have one of the receipts with you?" Shawn couldn't figure out why Will gave him a silly, endearing, sweet little smile that lit up his eyes like suns.

"No, I left it at the office. Just in case we wanted a reason to end dinner early and get out of here."

That was why he'd looked so cute, to admit that he had set this up. Shawn didn't know if he should be offended or flattered. Probably both. Both was good. He struggled to stay afloat, though; this was a dangerous thing: he was experiencing an imbalance, and he wanted to remain cautious. He liked Will, and now, something inside of him was telling him not to like Will. He ignored it in favor of finding a missing person. Identifying bodies and missing persons were good for him, above the usual work of cheating spouses. "Then, I suggest we get our appetizers boxed up and head out of here."

Will was assertive enough to get this done with alacrity. He was a zippy little fellow, Shawn thought, rather like a butterfly—but that overused cliche wasn't quite right, either. More like a puppy. His golden-brown eyes helped the allusion. If Will were a puppy, he'd be a chocolate lab with adorable floppy ears and big paws and and tongue that wouldn't stop licking. If Lassiter were a puppy, he'd be a Great Pyrenees. And not, as Shawn's sobriquet for him might've suggested, a Collie.

Will drove an old red Audi, which Shawn, somehow, thought appropriate for a chocolate lab puppy with adorable floppy ears and big paws. It was clean inside, smelled of cedar and patchouli, which came from a scented packet Will had made and left in the glove box. The herbal perfume was soon overtaken by the oil richness of restaurant fare. For Keeps wasn't far, and the two made the drive in relative silence. Shawn had stopped being amazed by the whole connection between them, that they'd both been with Adrian in multiple uses of the phrase "been with," and now he was focused on a missing person case. Assuming, of course, that he didn't head over to the maintenance person's office tomorrow and find him sitting at his desk or changing the oil in his truck. Maintenance guys always had trucks that were at least ten years behind the recent models, and always carrying a speck or two of rosy rust at the corner of the door, at a wheel well. They always needed oil changes or quarts of new oil, burning through it quicker than the vehicles of non-maintenance workers.

Will parked the antique A4 in the back lot, mostly employee parking. The back door showed darkness within. Shawn had a fleeting second of wondering what he was doing, going into a strange building in the dark with one of Adrian's exes, who might be slightly peeved that Adrian had chosen Shawn over him. But Will had made the bold declaration that it was the best thing that'd ever happened to him. He'd hinted that Adrian had physically hurt him. No—this was not someone that was holding a grudge against Shawn. This was just someone who wanted to find out what happened to the guy who cleaned the fountains. Though convinced, Shawn kept his shoulders square, his hands out of his borrowed coat's pockets. Vigilant eyes scanned and anticipated unnatural movements—but nothing happened.

Will unlocked the door, telling Shawn to wait while he turned off the alarm. Shawn dutifully did so. Will came back, let him inside. Shawn was blasted with the scents of the place. The smell of fountain being one of them. Fresh, in a way, and with a hint of bleach. Shawn was both wistful and watchful. He followed Will through the labyrinth of hallways to the front reception area. The fountain was still on, and now that he saw it again, Shawn could see that it was a little scuzzy, just as he'd seen it that morning.

"Um, Will?" The hair on the back of Shawn's neck started to lift. His arms tickled with horripilation. It always came on him when clues came together, forming one, one, one big thing. "The guy—the fountain guy—what did he look like? You said he was a little unkempt."

"Oh, yeah, well—you know how guys like that are." He continued fingering the upper tips of files in the file cabinet before finding the right one. Shawn saw it was labeled "Maintenance." It was full of sheets. "But he was, I don't know, six feet, maybe. Shaggy goldenish hair. Like a lion's mane. And his bones were strong, like through his skin. And his skin. It was unhealthy. Not hydrated. Old before its time. You know how someone starts to look desiccated when they've smoked a pack a day since, like, high school? That's how he looked. Like leather."

Shawn thought it must be the same guy. The body. The one in holding. The one Shawn had found. "Will?"

"Yeah?" Will turned around, handing Shawn one of the maintenance sheets. Shawn didn't glance at it yet.

Shawn was going to tell him that he thought the fountain guy was dead—the guy he'd found dead in holding. And while it lay on his tongue, ready to repeat, he couldn't do it. There was no positive identification on The Body yet, anyway, and this was just a hunch. Hunches were even worse than assumptions. "Um—I'll do what I can to find him. It shouldn't be too hard."

"Maybe not," Will agreed. "I've called the number on there a couple of times since Wednesday, left some voicemails. No return calls. And, like I said, I did go by the place. It just seemed sort of scary," he crept into his shell a little, "and I thought there was a smell—maybe I just imagined that. Still, it wigged me out enough that I decided it's something someone else should handle."

"That was probably wise. But you never talked to him, never asked him about the weather or a baseball game score? Nothing?"

"No, nothing. I never handled any of that. It was always Reece or Amanda. That's it, though. Do you want to go? Do you want to go home? I can drop you off. Or we could have a drink. Or watch a movie, or you could tell me what an interesting life you've had over breakfast in the morning."

An awesome proposition that Shawn would've accepted had his brain not been exploding. Although there was no sexual tension between them, Shawn was pretty sure he could fake it for a while with someone as fun and enlightening as Will. He just didn't want to. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe he couldn't get rid of the sensation that something was wrong—or too excited about how close he was to identifying the poor man in holding. "I think I'll have to take a raincheck on the breakfast thing."

"Makes sense," Will said with a subtle smile, no hint of embarrassment. He thought and felt the same way. They had too much history without ever having met. It wouldn't be the two of them in bed, anyway; it'd be the three of them. Two real persons, and one ghost that wouldn't quit. Will was kind of relieved. He didn't know what would've happened if Shawn had said yes to breakfast. "You'll tell me what happens, right? If you find the guy?"

"Of course," Shawn said. "You're my client. I'd never keep you out of the loop."

"Do you want money up front, or—"

"Ha, no, no money, please. This is a favor."

"If you say so," Will said, smiling again in the warm way that invited Shawn in. "Maybe another dinner some night."

_Or a breakfast_, Shawn wanted to add, not feeling brave enough. It was too soon for action, but not too soon for imagination and hope. If not with Will, then with someone, someday. "And if you wouldn't mind giving me a ride somewhere, I can get started on this right away."

Will agreed, glad that there were no hard feelings between them. But he did apologize again, dropping Shawn off at his selected destination.

"I am sorry if it was all too much for you," he began by saying, "but I had to tell you that I knew who you were. And about Adrian. It took me all this time to realize that there are better guys out there. I didn't want it to take you as long to figure it out. But you seem to be doing okay."

When Will's eye caught movement, Shawn naturally turned to see what he was looking at. In front of the Psych office door stood Lassiter. Shawn had a bewildering sensation that a bad thing had happened, but it dissipated quickly when Lassie raised a hand in a gentle wave.

Will amended his assessment. "You seem to be doing _really _okay, actually."

"He's more like my boss."

"But he isn't."

Shawn hacked out a laugh at Will catching him in an obvious half-lie. He snapped off the safety belt, and looked heartily at Will. They'd been through a lot. Their date had led them through even more. "Thanks."

Will gave an embarrassed nod. Now that Shawn was acknowledging the help he'd served deliberately, Will couldn't take it. "Yeah—we'll talk soon. And good luck finding out what happened to my fountain guy."

"Yeah, I'll call you tomorrow." Shawn felt like they should hug or kiss or something—they had a connection, and it was more than their backgrounds, more than their foregrounds, their united and overlapping history with one man. Shawn gave him a hug, and Will patted his back and paused to breathe in at Shawn's neck. It was a little ticklish, and very suggestive, and maybe— But Shawn inched his hand towards the handle, wanting to get started on the case Will had given him.

But, first, he had to face Lassiter. As Will's Audi puttered away, a squeak in the break at the next stop sign, Shawn budged his way past Lassie to unlock the door.

"What are you doing here? Having me followed?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact. Dobson and McNab. They told me when you left the restaurant."

Shawn let him in against reason and sense and desire, but this was work—or interpersonal—he couldn't tell which. Barriers were getting crossed today, and he didn't like it. "I'm going to ignore the fact that you had me followed."

"So did O'Hara," Lassiter said, taking a seat at the desk. He picked up a bright green and gold rubber thing. It was a squeezable pineapple. He squeezed until its crown distended and distorted, but the stress was still churning in him. "She had you followed. McNab told me. Why did you come here?"

"Will gave me a case." Shawn took off the precious coat, and, gingerly, laid it in Lassiter's lap. He found a flannel in a locker and threw it on. It was a thick one he'd bought in Indiana during a Christmas he spent there a few years ago, just before he decided to go back to Santa Barbara. It kept the chill off him. He took Gus's desk chair and rolled it over to Carlton. "Lassie, listen, do you remember what Strode said about the body? That it had burns on its feet?"

"Yeah, chemical burns. Like from—"

"Bleach."

"Yeah. And?"

"Do you remember when we were at the massage parlor today, they had fountains?"

"I saw a couple. The one in the front, obviously. It's huge. And there's another big one in this room I found when I was having a look around. Why?"

"What do you think they're cleaned with?"

"Is the answer bleach?" Lassiter asked, not sure what sort of game they were playing. Or that, in a couple of years, this would become common between him and Shawn—the game of Questions Only—and that he'd always laugh when one of them won, one of them lost. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"What if I told you the dead body I found in holding might be the missing maintenance guy at For Keeps that cleaned their fountains?"

"I don't know," Lassiter said. "Am I likely to say you're crazy? Because you'd be crazy. Well, you're crazy anyway."

"Why would that be so unheard of, though?" Shawn kept going with the game that Lassiter didn't seem to know they were playing. Shawn had spent a lot of time doing improv, and he knew one game from another. "Couldn't the body be a maintenance guy who cleans fountains, who's around chlorine a lot? Will described him to me," he stopped playing, taking this too seriously, "and it sounds like the description he gave matches that of the body. But Will didn't know him." Shawn explained all that Will had told him, and threw in his own conjecture. He didn't mention, yet, that Will had also been Adrian's boyfriend. That information was heavy, saved for a day of rain and sadness, when the loss of attachment and the newness of freedom started to hurt again, perhaps for fresh reasons.

Shawn had wanted to stay at the offices and do research into the matter, but now Lassiter could sense that his need to work was on the wane. Lassiter shouldn't have come, and he was relieved that Shawn didn't ask why he'd come, never pressing for a real answer. Shawn had been deeply satisfied that it had to do with being followed. After the sort of week Shawn had had, it might not have been much of a surprise. His friends cared about him, and they'd wanted to watch out for him. Getting the call from McNab about Shawn's departure from the restaurant, around eight o' clock, left Carlton puzzled. What had happened? It might not have gone well. Or it might've gone really well. Lassiter had followed Will's car four blocks, then realized they were heading to the Psych office. He took a different route, not the usual one that would've come to Will's brain—Will had only been in town seven months and wouldn't know all the shortcuts—Lassiter beat them there.

He put down the squeezy pineapple, curled the coat around his arm. "Come on, I'll get you home. You can work on this tomorrow. Just promise me that you won't think about this anymore tonight."

Pretty soon, it was Masset the Mouse that Shawn heard in his apartment. He turned music on to drown out the chewing, the noises in his head. The echoes of Adrian's accusations had started to fade, sounding like the final burst of a wave in the echo of anger left behind.


	21. The Wheeling Sky

**XXI. The Wheeling Sky **

It was one of those rough nights for Carlton. Lots of tossing, turning, some flinging, some dangling. Moments awake were rarely rewarded with long reposes. The night seemed interminable. When his alarm went off at 6:30, a reminder to get going, get out there, exercise, coffee, etc., and so forth—Lassiter stomped his alarm into oblivion and joined it there in another unsponsored gush of sleep. It was almost eight when he was finally ready to get up. His head was full of things—unfinished tasks, lingering nightmares, embarrassments and anxieties.

Last night, he almost confessed the truth to Shawn. He'd have to, soon. It was eating away at him. He knew what would happen if he did. Either he could choose not to sleep at night because it was hanging over him like a tooth-filled tapestry, or he could go on not telling Shawn and let it stab at him with special knives that only flung blades at the guilty. He would have to choose.

The house smelled like coffee and cinnamon rolls, and finding Shawn on the couch watching television helped dispel many displeasures.

Even before Shawn said anything, Lassiter had sucked in the staggering amount of evidence that Shawn had come over in the middle of the night. The comforter from the guest room bed was on the couch, a big wave of blue and white. Shawn's sleeping attire seemed to match the nautical theme, with blue and white plaid pants and a plain pale blue t-shirt. His feet were bare, tucked under him on the sofa. An oversized blue coffee cup was in both hands. The whole tableau was sort of compelling and almost pretty.

"That explains a lot," Lassiter grumbled the words into a yawn, as he flung himself into the kitchen. It explained why he hadn't slept well after one in the morning, Shawn's usual time of arrival. He'd poured coffee into a mug, took it into the living room to stare Shawn into a justification for his presence.

"I couldn't sleep," Shawn started, the first sweeps of guilt overcoming him. He didn't move, let his eyes hang on the gloss of colors from the screen, though he had no idea what the images actually were. All he could see was his past cutting strongly into his future. "I drove the bike over here around one. A little before. Or did the bike bring me? It's really hard to be sure."

It alluded to Lassiter's talk last night about the magic of the Norton. He must've heard Shawn come in, though he'd long since known that Shawn could sneak in without much noise, and leave very little footprint behind him. The things Shawn were capable of unnerved him. Sneaking into the house at an early morning hour really shouldn't be one of them. As he knew and acknowledged, Shawn was going through a lot. Creature comforts were a must. Happiness might be nothing more than a flash in the pan, but it was those flashes that helped shine a light on the dark, dark areas of life.

Lassiter sipped his coffee, struggled with it against his tongue. He looked at the liquid: pure brown-black. He'd forgotten to put anything in it. He made himself swallow, but the acidic bitterness of dark roast hit him in the throat. Shawn, to his credit, hadn't made the coffee too weak or too strong. Like most actions he executed, should he choose to take action, it was done with strategic perfection. Lassiter just didn't want black coffee.

"The cinnamon rolls are almost ready," Shawn told the being that retreated to the kitchen. He had to give Lassie a few minutes to wake up. Judging by the amount of noise Shawn had heard last night, as he also hadn't slept well, Lassiter would need more than two cups of coffee to feel awake. Shawn thought about suggesting that they go out somewhere for coffee that morning, seeing as how he'd imposed himself on Sunberry Lane. However, Shawn discarded the idea. He wanted to lounge in his pajamas as long as possible. Maybe go back to sleep when his belly was full of cinnamon rolls.

The timer went off on the old stove, more like a buzzing sound than a chime as newer stoves emitted. He turned the knob to turn off the timer. Lassie had just given his coffee a final stir, and peeked into the opening oven door to espy the tray of treats within. They were golden at the edges, and some of the cinnamon mixture was bubbling. They looked done. Shawn took them out and set them on a burner, proud of his morning achievement.

Lassiter inspected them. They were not made with yeast but looked puffy and delicious anyway. "Where did these come from?"

"From that bowl in the sink," Shawn said, not sure what the question was for. "I made them. What do you think?"

"By hand?"

"I didn't use my feet, if that's what you mean. I'm not talented enough with my feet to use them for cooking. It's my left foot, you see, it's always giving me a lot of trouble—maybe Daniel Day-Lewis has some advice. First, you think my bike is magical. Second, you think there are fairy-folk that go around giving people cinnamon rolls."

"Is the Pillsbury Dough Boy a fairy?"

"Probably," Shawn retorted, put-off by Carlton's sense of humor. In the following silence, Shawn waited for questions that never appeared. Until it snapped like a firework into his own mind: What am I doing here? To demand it of himself spun the moment out of reason, into a slight tilt, into a ripple that threatened to expose his inner chaos. He ducked his head and did what any self-respecting adult hanging at a delicate escarpment would do: he went to the bathroom and shut the door quietly behind him.

Carlton tucked into a cinnamon roll without asking questions. Did he have to? After all, Shawn's presence was rather self-evident at this point, and adding words—actual, verbal nonsense—to the whole thing would only be Lewis Carrol nonsense. Anyway—he was feeling a twinge of guilt. More than a twinge. The tiny pinprick that'd been bothering him since he found out about Shawn and Adrian's split was now the size of Pluto, and about as dark and unknown. He couldn't analyze it while eating. He told himself not to. He was going to ride out the guilt. He'd have a nice morning. There were cinnamon rolls and an uncomplicated television show to tune himself into. There was decent coffee that, for once, he didn't have to brew himself. And, for the first time in days, the sun was out and shone brightly. He paused a moment, considering the lack of clouds, the golden-white beams of morning. Shawn had been as gloomy as the weather. Shawn was psychic, so he claimed. Maybe Shawn controlled the weather—

Seeing the disarranged presence emerge from the bathroom, twist himself into the kitchen on the wisp of a loud yawn, Carlton doubted Shawn had any control over the weather. No more than anyone else who concentrated on a cloud to make it disappear. Wasn't that from a book? Sure, he was sure it was from a book he'd read. Probably in college. But what was the name of that book?

He asked the walking encyclopedia that just sat down on the couch, his cinnamon roll in a bowl—who ate cinnamon rolls in bowls?—and a fresh cup of coffee.

"What's the name of the book with the character that goes around smashing clouds with his mind until they disappear?"

Shawn stared—stared _hard_—and felt a bit of cinnamon roll get stuck against the side of his throat. He coughed, dislodging it. It required no brain energy whatsoever to reach the answer to the curious query. "You mean _Illusions_? Richard Bach? Uh—1977—Random House? No, wait. Dell. Dell—yes, Dell. Is that the one you're talking about?"

"I think so. I think I own it—somewhere."

"You do. It's in a box in the guest room closet. The small one in the back corner. On top of another box of old socks. Why do you have old socks? In a box? Just a slave to rhyme, Lass?"

Carlton started to answer, bewildered, and, too bewildered to go on, threw himself into a silent undulation of possibilities. He doubted and questioned his own antics. Or had he simply forgotten? He could no longer remember what they'd been talking about, since now all he could think about was the box of socks in the closet.

Oh, right. Illusions. Chasing away clouds with the mind. Was that really all he remembered from that book? He really should dig it out and reread it.

Shawn grabbed the remote, able to turn the volume up now Lassie was awake.

Eidetic memory. Carlton thought about it again, wondered if that was the key to Shawn's so-called _powers_. He doubted it. Remembering things didn't help a person solve crimes. In some cases, mostly fictional, it worked. Barbara Gordon from Batman mythos. Sure. And sometimes Sherlock Holmes used his indelible memory to solve a crime. His talent was mostly in the accumulation of evidence, however, not memory. Still, he could be on to something. He could get to the bottom of Shawn Spencer. Eventually.

Then again, part of the mystery and the draw of allure was _not _knowing how he did what he did. No more than Carlton understood when Shawn might fly into one of his spontaneous, self-professed "possessions," or throw himself into a thespian retelling of the events that brought a person to commit murder. He could explain it all: motive, action, the subsequent tumble into vileness.

Shawn got up without precedent, set down the cinnamon roll, what was left with it, and made a gesture as he started heading down the hallway. "Don't touch that! The middles are the best! And I still haven't made the icing yet!"

Carlton looked at the mess of a roll in the bowl. It was just the middle, gooey and soft. The middles really were the best part. He went back to eating his, and, in a moment, as commercials came on, Shawn returned. A thin paperback landed in his lap just before Shawn reclaimed bowl and seat.

"Thanks," Carlton looked at the book—he remembered the black background and the bright blue feather. Wasn't there something about manifesting feathers? But he couldn't recall. He'd remember when he started reading it again. He could chalk up its sudden appearance to one of Shawn's feeble psychic moments. He would've known Carlton was thinking about the book, and now wanted to read it again. That wasn't really being psychic, just a level of intuition and understanding.

"Was it weird?" Carlton asked, not sure how he might've stopped himself. "Last night. The date. Was it weird being on a date again?"

Shawn gave a shake of his head, mouth full, but Carlton took that to mean that it hadn't been weird. "Don't misunderstand, I was trying to tell you that it wasn't weird because it wasn't a date. Or maybe it was weird because it _wasn't _a date? I'm not sure. I'll decide later. We talked about some stuff, you know, new age stuff, and um—he uh—" Shawn delayed. But, what the hell! What did it matter? He angled in his seat to open up to Lassie a little more. "Look, this is really, really weird and I didn't know this ahead of time or I wouldn't have agreed to meet him—maybe—but—he knew who I was."

"Ah, well." Carlton judged this with a fair amount of accuracy. "It's probably getting more difficult for you to wander around town using aliases. You're in the paper a fair amount. Perhaps if you made an effort to be in the paper _less_, then that would—"

"No, it's not from my work with the SBPD." Shawn swallowed, thinking that this, too, was weird. Sitting on a couch in Lassie's house, eating cinnamon rolls and about to make a confession that'd kept him awake most of the night, even after he snuck in using the back door. Lassiter must've thought he'd come, though: the house alarm hadn't been set. "Look, um—" How was he going to even say this? It was wringing out a bit of hell from inside of him. He had to say it fast. Worse than ripping off a bandage, more like ripping off a scab. "Will used to date Adrian—let me finish—until September. They broke up in September."

Carlton let this float around the room. If he admitted that he knew why that was important, he'd be admitting to a lot. Perhaps it was just as well that he did. Perhaps it was time to start squeezing them into it, the argument yet to come. "But you two were already—"

"Yeah." Shawn turned back the other way on the couch, went back to watching the screen without really being sure what it showed. He didn't want to talk about it more than he already had. Lassie was smart enough to connect the dots. The abrupt cessation of his assessment proved it. "But he did bring me the case, too. I think it's got to be the same guy."

"We'll go over to the address you've got and check it out in a little bit. After I've downed about three more of these," he emphasized his mug. "Do you want Gus and O'Hara to come along?"

Gus needed time and space to deal with his own issues. It was an unanticipated bonus that Lassiter said he'd tag along. "No, I think they're doing their own things today. We can handle it ourselves."

It took a while, but they did just as Shawn predicted. And just as Lassiter predicted, he had three more cups of coffee and a quick, cool shower before he was ready to go. He was amazed at Shawn's ability to leave the house without being freshly clean, and in most of yesterday's clothes.

"What do you want me to do," Shawn said, protesting, "borrow your fancy underpants?"

"You went into my underwear drawer? When?"

"I didn't, but now I know you wear fancy underpants. Do they have lace on them? Are they bright neon zebra stripes?"

"I find it hard to believe that somewhere in my house you haven't tucked away an extra pair of—of—"

"Undies? You can say it, Lass. Undies."

The idea of talking about unmentionables with Shawn was plain unnerving.

"Or would you prefer we call them unmentionables?"

Lassiter winced at the person on the other side of the car. How did he _do _that, anyway?

"And I do have a pair of unmentionables tucked somewhere in a shadowy, dark corner of your abode, Lass. I do." They were in the car, then, and Shawn was swift to latch himself in. Carlton's movements were slower, more deliberate and cautious. "Tell me more about your underwear, though. Now I'm curious. Are they floral? Dolce and Gabbana? Hugo Boss? Although they're a German label, and I can't imagine anything German is comfortable, can you? Perhaps you prefer classic Calvin Klein. Nothing wrong with that. No judgment. It's all right. All Gods children are great and good in neon zebra stripe bikini-roos. Are they neon zebra stripe, though? Really. I must know."

Because he'd said it with a light Spanish accent, a la Inigo Montoya from _The Princess Bride_, Carlton spun it right back.

"Get used to disappointment."

There was no retort to this—nowhere under the sun, nowhere in the back of the moon. Shawn slipped down into the seat, and tried not to think about what sort of secrets Lassie kept in his underwear drawer.

They made an unexpected stop at Platypus Park. Lassiter wanted another cup of coffee to steel his nerves, and to get into the fresh air for a moment, but told Shawn he could wait in the car. He took Shawn's order with him to the counter. It was the usual Sunday morning team, and Carlton was glad he didn't even have to say what he wanted, not for himself.

"A large chai, too, please. And a slice of almond kringle. To go."

He had his order within a few minutes, then was back at the car. Shawn took his chai, tasted its perfection, and peeked into the bag. "Is this for later?"

"For later," Lassiter commented. Now the rough part began. Trying to get through a possible interrogation at a suspicious location. "Spencer, listen, when we get there—"

"Let you do the talking, don't touch anything, and don't spazz into my psychicness. Yeah, I got it. You're like a broken record."

The maintenance shop was west, off Hollister but past Turnpike Road. Not an area Shawn knew very well, and it was just as well that Lassiter was driving. Like most major thoroughfares, it was packed with stuff. Restaurants, stores, more restaurants, clinics, churches, and, finally, a storefront that looked like something from 1985. It said Hollister Fountains & Water Care. The right spot had been found.

It wasn't open and no one was inside.

"That figures," Lassiter grumbled, dropping his hands to shield the glass from the sun, to see what he could see of the interior. "All the lights are off, except maybe a security light on in the way back. It's a small place. Not much to it."

"It says they're closed Sundays," Shawn said, pointing to the sign on the front door.

Lassiter had a way around this lack of information. He was a cop. He scrounged for his clues, even if, occasionally, they stumbled their way into Shawn's lap instead. The building next door proclaimed itself a yoga and dance studio. They were open, and a nice woman with a white pageboy inexpertly dyed to a less natural brown hue, waited at the front desk. Immediately, she stood on alert. Lassiter looked like a cop, and there was no mistaking his presence for someone interested in a sunshine salute or a jitterbug class. Shawn wasn't noticed at all; it hardly hurt his feelings.

"Can I help you?"

Lassiter went through the spiel of introducing himself, flashing his badge, etc. "Looking into the owner for the business next door. The fountain and water care place. Do you know them?"

"Him," she corrected, showing some sass. "Yeah, I do. A little. Enough to know he leaves his junk lying in the alley out back because he's too lazy to throw it in the dumpster like he's supposed to. I've called the city on him a few times, but they give me the usual runaround."

Lassiter wrote this down with his stubby pencil with its perfectly sharpened tip, into a tiny spiral-bound notebook that fit into the palm of his hand.

"What sort of stuff is back there?" Shawn asked. She noticed him for the first time, her hesitation clear.

"You don't look like a cop. Unless you two are playing Coiffed Cop, Messy Cop." Their auras didn't match up, but she didn't want to say so. The messy one had a messed up aura. The other one had a big gold and white aura, a sign of a guardian, a protector.

Lassiter didn't try to explain—much. "He's been hired by someone to find the man from the business next door. I'm here on a different matter." He wasn't, really, but she didn't have to know that. "But we both want to speak with him. You don't have to answer his question." Valid as the question was, the two of them could sneak into the alley and take a look for themselves. "Do you know his name?"

A young man came in and tried to hurry along Sheila, the woman they were talking to. The class was nearly ready to start and they needed their instructor. Shawn got a low-level stare of intrigue and assessment from the young man as he swerved back to the classroom. Shawn wondered if the breakup made him appear sultrier and sexier than usual. Maybe all the crying, well, the _sobbing _at least, made his eyes puffier and more bedroom-like. He doubted it. He doubted it hard.

He doubted a lot of thing when heard what the woman said next.

"His name? His is Jasper, but he goes by Jas. Don't know his last name for sure, at least not until I finally sue him, but I think it's Collins."

It was like the bottom fell out of his shattered everything—one more time.


	22. Lord of the Stars

**XXII. Lord of the Stars**

Carlton thought it was best if he got Shawn out of there. He was unsure what would fly out of his mouth or Shawn's in the next ten seconds, and he didn't want to be accountable for it. "Come on," he muttered gently, even more gently taking Shawn by the wrist and scooting him towards the bright white light of the exit. He wasn't surprised when they got two feet beyond the door, and he lost his grip on Shawn.

Shawn came to a standstill, staring at nothing. He brought Lassiter's shoes into focus. His shoes were always nice, usually newer, and, like his suits, worn for one or two years before being replaced. The ties, though—not the ties. Lassiter kept those around forever. His head swam. Focusing on minute details around him helped keep perspective. "Did she really say his name was Jasper Collins? Collins. As in—as in Collins. As in—"

"It's a common enough last name, Spencer. You know that. And it wasn't as though she said his surname was _Harris-Collins_, right? Come on," he gripped Shawn's shoulder in an effort to get him to move, "we got a name now. We can go to the station, look him up, and figure out how to proceed from there. And you can collect your fee from Will, if you want to. You found out who he was. You weren't expected to do anything beyond that." He didn't know, a sliver of worry shooting through him. "Were you?"

"No," Shawn found this question answerable. Sense started to flit to the surface. His gaze swam across the detective. Good cop. Nice aura. Finely coiffed. "Do you have the morgue photo of him, of Jasper?"

Yeah, he did, and, shit, he forgot to show it to her. He'd been in too big of a hurry to get Shawn out of there. He was half-fearful the woman would go on another tirade about Jasper Collins and all the things he'd done wrong in his life, with his new business.

It annoyed Shawn because he knew he'd hindered the investigation. In business hours, it bothered him that his friends put him ahead of their duty. There should be nothing greater than duty, he didn't care what Victor Hugo wrote. "I'm fine. Give me the keys. I'll just wait in the car."

Lassiter trusted him with the keys, and darted inside without a spoken oath that he'd be back shortly.

Shawn did not head to the car. Instead, he did the opposite. Behind the set of three shops, built of that golden brick color used often decades ago, Shawn found the alley. It was as he'd pictured in his mind's eye, his imaginal realm not letting him down. If he looked hard enough, there was the imprint of Pandora's chaos in the debris, in the rusty dumpster, in the years of grit that'd built up along the edges of the building. It was dusty, gross, smelled, and Shawn didn't want to be there. His sense of discomfort was not greater than his sense of duty. He wasn't going to pander to his weakness. Lassiter was right, anyway: there must be a thousand people in their area with the surname Collins. And even if Adrian had a thousand cousins, that didn't mean that Jasper Collins was one of them. There had to be a lot of Jasper Collinses around, too. Surely—yes? There must be.

Disassociating didn't work. He just had a feeling, though—a sense. There had been a coil in his gut that told him this was coming. And it was still coming. And as he got nearer to figuring it out, he knew—he'd always known—that it would somehow lead back to Adrian.

He crawled up the side of the dumpster, it was easier there than trying to go from the front, and peeked over the rim. A couple of thin translucent-white garbage bags told him very little. Some were more vile, smeared on the inside with food stuff. Must've been from the Thai restaurant on the corner. He did see two containers that had that quintessential chemical bottle shape. He could barely make it out from a distance: a descaler, and an algaecide. Made sense for a guy who cleaned fountains.

And one thing in the corner. It took him a moment to realize that it was a dead and broken fountain. It took him another moment to realize why it looked familiar. His insides whipped into icicles. That couldn't be right, though—that really couldn't be—

He hopped down, safely back on the ground. Just in time, too, as Lassiter then turned the corner on a hunt for him.

"I'm coming," he called. His voice shook. He was shaking again. He hoped Lassiter wouldn't head into the alley himself. There wasn't much to see, but Lassiter insisted. He didn't want Lassiter to see—but of course—of course Lassiter wouldn't _know_.

He, too, hopped up the side of the dumpster and peered into it. Shawn held his breath, but Lassiter's assessment was simple.

"Chemical containers."

"Yeah, I saw those."

"And a busted fountain, looks like, over in the far corner."

Shawn said nothing more about the fountain. Lassiter gazed around again.

"Suppose that one of these bags with more paper than food is from his shop?"

"I'd go with more food than paper. Actually, take-out containers. I sense he eats a lot of drive-thru."

Ah, Lassiter thought, that was a good angle. Of course, Jasper Collins would eat a lot of drive-thru, being on the road on service calls and installations most of the day. That was sensible. Nothing to do but go in and get it—

Shawn blinked at Lassiter's shape vanishing into the dumpster. He heard a soft metallic crash and the pressure of plastic sacks squeezed out of shape. Shawn hopped back on the dumpster's side. Lassiter was in there, all right. "What are you doing?"

"Catch." Lassiter ignored the question, the answer too obvious. He tossed up one translucent white sack that was smaller than the others, like from a seven-gallon wastebasket, and definitely not bigger than a thirteen-gallon bin.

Shawn caught the bag smoothly with one hand. It was lightweight. Inside, he could barely make out a couple pieces of paper, the dirty color of a napkin made of recycled and unbleached fibers, and some take-out wads. "I am _not _going through this."

He got out of the way so Lassiter could free himself from the stink. "No, you shouldn't. You should contact Will. He should know. Maybe there's something he knows that he's not telling."

Shawn read through this easily enough, following Lassiter out of the alley and still carrying the garbage bag. It bumped against his legs. "Like whether he ever met one of Adrian's umpteen-thousand cousins, and one of them happened to be Jasper Collins?"

"Hey, it's possible. How many cousins does Adrian have?"

"NASA is still working on those numbers. A lot. Probably just slightly less than exes," he held up a pointer finger to add insipidly, "but more than disgruntled exes who'd like to use his mansack as a pincushion."

They were back at the car. Lassiter popped the trunk, unfolded one of the two white bath towels he kept back there. They were old, well-used. Lassiter did not replace his bath towels once or twice a year like he did his wardrobe. One towel he laid out in the trunk and set the garbage bag on. The other he laid out in the front seat so he could sit at the wheel without leaving quite as much stink.

Rather than make jokes or snide remarks about the sudden smell in the car, most of which was probably emanating from the bottom of Carlton's loafers, Shawn rolled down the car's windows. Lassiter did not raise them up again. It was a chilly morning, but warmer than it'd been the last few days. And the sun was out, making everything brighter and shinier. Maybe he was finally starting to come back to the earth after flitting away in despair and sorrow the last week. The lie was uncomfortable. It would take more than a week to get over everything that'd happened. He knew that. Even with the presence a well-meaning, softly-intentioned Will Lissner, Shawn was still going to need more time. But Lassiter noticed, for how quiet Shawn was, staring out the window, he fidgeted with his hands in his lap the whole drive back to the house.

Lassiter left the garbage bag in the trunk. Inside the house, in the mud room, the space between dining room and laundry nook, he took off his shoes, his socks, and headed for his bedroom. "Taking a shower!"

"Still not going to join you, no matter how often you ask!" Shawn returned.

Carlton rolled his eyes—that was never going to happen. "Hey! I know you were in that dumpster too! Take off your shoes!"

Shawn had almost forgotten, taking two steps into the dining room before taking two steps back to remove his footwear. He carried them to the kitchen sink and ran water over the soles, trying not to get them wet. They were his only shoes in that house—he really must consider hiding more somewhere. Maybe under the couch. Lassie would never think to look there. Shoes tolerably done with soap and water, Shawn washed his hands. He scrubbed all the way up to his elbows. He poked at the cinnamon rolls after lifting the aluminum sheet that covered them. They were still warm. He helped himself to another one. Icing got wiped off on his jeans, and he sniffed his shirt sleeve, sniffed his armpit, trying to decide if he still smelled like dumpster. Maybe he did a little. Lassiter would surely let him know.

Shawn picked up his phone to check for messages. Nothing, really. Another one from his dad, but Shawn ignored it. They'd already bonded more that week than Shawn intended, and he had to keep some secrets. He pounded out a message to Will, sent it, and went out to the backyard. He smelled better out there, and there was that clover-soft sweetness of a California morning to greet him. Everywhere he'd lived, he thought about that smell. It'd probably done more to draw him back to Santa Barbara than the damn cold winter he'd faced in Indianapolis, than Gus, than his dad and old hates and new hopes.

For five minutes, sitting in the sun, Shawn was able to forget about it. He could forget Adrian, Will, and what he'd seen in the dumpster. He could believe in the power of Coincidence. He could disbelieve that Jasper Collins of Hollister Fountain & Water Care was the same Jasper Collins he'd heard about.

He could wipe that away for a moment's peace.

He closed his eyes and pillowed his head with his crossed arms. Nothing was going to bother him for the rest of the day. He would refuse to let it. He'd found out who the man was, and he was going to tell Chief Vick.

He dug out his phone from a pocket and telephoned Vick. It was about ten-thirty, and no doubt she was awake.

"I'm just heading out the door to my yoga class. What is it, Mr. Spencer?"

"Yoga, on Sunday mornings? That's interesting." And a coincidence, considering where he'd learned the body's identity. "Guy's name is Jasper Collins."

"Who is? What?"

"The body. From holding. Died of natural causes along an avenue of disease. Jasper. Collins."

"Jasper Collins?"

"That's what I said. You can do tree pose and think about it."

"Jasper Collins," now it was a flat statement, and Shawn felt his small hairs lift and prickle, "like from the Collins Bank people—those Collinses?"

"You just told me to find out who the body was, and I found out who the body was. Should I call Mayor Cordero at home, or just meet him on the sixth green at the country club to tell him the news? Or, sorry, would you like to be the one to tell him?"

"Cute, Mr. Spencer. Put Lassiter on the phone."

"Can't."

"Come on, I know you're probably still there at his house. Put him on."

Shawn could do this—and it would be hilarious. "All right, but—give me a second. I'm sitting in the backyard."

Shawn slid into the house, through the dining room, and couldn't hear the shower running any more as he got close to the bathroom door. It was shut tightly, but, as he turned the handle, not locked. That was Lassiter's problem. The figure in front of the sink and mirror gave a jump.

"Shawn—"

"You have a towel on, this is not a big deal."

Karen heard this and laughed. "He was in the bathroom? Shawn Spencer!"

"You told me to get him. I got him. Here he is. Really angry Lassie. Kisses, Karen. Bye."

Shawn pawed his phone off to Lassiter, and shut the door behind him just as Lassiter, still overcome, finally gave a greeting to the chief. That was a worthwhile venture, Shawn thought. He congratulated himself on a literal prank well-done, and took his seat again to bask like a reptile in the sun.

"He's a consultant," Karen reminded Lassiter when he again asked if there was no way to reprimand Shawn for his insubordination.

"He makes kissy noises at you," Lassiter retaliated, so sure that he was right. Really sure he was right. "That's harassment. Imagine if me or Dobson made kissy noises at you."

"It's not the same thing coming from him. Professionally speaking."

"Oh, so, because he's this non-threatening sexual entity, he gets away with making kissy noises at you? Thanks. That means I'm much more interesting to you sexually. Wait," he said, clumping his realizations together, "forget I said that. Can't we, you know, fire him or something? Send him to another city?"

"You can tell me when you want to fill out a new benefits form for your domestic partner."

"That's very amusing because it'll _never happen_."

"And I never thought I'd get married and bring a kid in this world of ours. Love makes us idiots."

"I'm not—" He caught himself and pulled in a calming breath. "I suppose he told you that we found the body's identity?"

"Yes. Jasper Collins. Same Collinses?"

"I haven't confirmed that yet. Jasper Collins could be just a common name. The woman at the business next door from his, out on Hollister, confirmed that the man who owns the fountain shop and the body from holding are the same. Going to head over to the station now and look into it, see if we've got anything on him. And I need a warrant to search his business. Maybe we can find a cell phone."

"Good, you do that. I'm going to yoga."

"Breathe deeply," Carlton told her.

"Call me if you've got something big. Really big. But not until after yoga. I need it."

"Will do."

"And I'll write myself a note to send over the new benefits package to you."

"Yeah, I'm hanging up now."

"Kissy noises, Lassiter."

"I do not condone—"

She'd hung up already. The call ended. Still in a towel, he went to the living room. His feet stopped. Shawn was nowhere. He turned the corner. Through the dining room patio door, he could see Shawn in the lounge chair in the backyard, sunning himself like a little succulent. Carlton started to leave the phone on the coffee table, but a text-chime stopped him, made him catch the blip on the screen.

It was from Will. "Collins? Oh. Shit. Really?"

Shawn must've told him the identity of the man.

Lassiter got dressed again, this time wearing jeans and a button-up shirt, without a tie. He joined Shawn in the backyard, took the other lounge seat. He had two, as if hoping—

"There's something I have to tell you," Lassiter started to say. "About the body."

"What about the body? You find him attractive?"

"No! What do you think I am?"

"Relax, I was making a joke. Enjoy the sunshine. Take a deep breath. Think of this nice backyard and its little lemon tree, and how happy your succulents are in the kitchen window."

Carlton huffed, not relaxed. "Does the Collins Bank mean anything to you?"

"No," Shawn gave a shake of his head, eyeing Lassie. It was easy to lie. He knew about the Collins Bank, of course, but he wanted to pick Lassiter's brain. The sunglasses helped him carry off the lie when a quiver of hesitation, visible in his emotional eyes, might've given it away. "Should it?"

"I guess it happened before you came back to Santa Barbara. It was about ten years ago."

"Then that would be before I came back to Santa Barbara. This is why we're both not mathematicians. What about it?"

"Someone inside the bank was embezzling. Well, turns out it was more than one person. It was three people from within the Collins family. Two of them killed themselves before indictments. The third—"

"Are you saying that Jasper Collins, the unkempt fellow who I found dead in holding, was one of those embezzlers?" Shawn set his head back before Lassiter answered, the forthcoming reply far too obvious. "That beats what was going through my head."

"That he might be related to Adrian."

"Yeah."

Then came the really difficult part. "Shawn—they _are _related to Adrian."

This was not something Shawn had let himself completely believe until he heard Lassiter say it. He felt like one of those veiled statues he'd seen images of: frightfully beautiful, incredibly sad, full of sorrow. Outwardly, he held to every atom of his physical being. It began to knock around in his head, first with a hollow sort of bong-bong; then it grew exponentially to something with substance and stickiness, a kind of _smack-smock_ sound. He dismissed this connection as tenuous. It meant nothing.

He still wanted to disappear. The least he could do was question Carlton's reason for drawing this to their attention. "What's that supposed to mean? I'm not an idiot. Yeah, what he did to me was ridiculous, and the longer I'm away from it the angrier it makes me, that I said I was sorry to him, that I told him we could always be friends—but you know what? I don't want to be friends with _anyone _who ever said those things about me, or anyone who treats his friends with more respect than he treats his lovers. He's a drunk asshole, yes, and maybe all of the Collinses are drunk assholes. Strode did say the guy's liver was roughly the size of Ford Fiesta, didn't he? Anyway, even if it's too late for me to make this short, I can say that Adrian has cousins up and down the west coast, from Tijuana—don't ask—to Pelican Beach. It doesn't have anything to do with him, and I'm not—I don't—"

Lassiter had his hands with the palms pressed together, petition or prayer. "No one said he did. Jasper Collins died of natural causes. I just thought you should know. I'm going to the station. Do you want a ride somewhere? Do you want to stay here? You can stay—I don't think I'll be gone very long." That might be the wrong phrase to use if he wanted Shawn to stay. "Or maybe gone a while. Not sure."

Lassie was the only one Shawn knew that would voluntarily go to the station on a Sunday. He winced at Lassiter, now standing, and squinted again against the sunlight. "Are you going to look up stuff on Jasper Collins?"

"That was the plan."

"Would you tell me if you found something worthwhile? For my client."

"I don't anticipate anything worthwhile, but," he held his breath momentarily, debating, "yeah, all right. For your client." It was so rare that Lassiter knew any of Psych's clients, let alone liked them. What wasn't to like about Will? Shawn and Will seemed to have a lot in common, if only dubious taste in men. If Adrian Harris-Collins so much as spit on a sidewalk and Carlton was around to catch it, Adrian was going down. Or at least getting the highest fine the local court would allow. He reached to his collar as if to straighten his tie, forgetting that he wasn't wearing one. He pressed the lapels down, like that was what he'd meant to do from the start. "You're staying?"

Shawn worked his way into a reply. It was a nice, sunny day, and at the very least he could sit outside—he didn't have that option at Mee Mee's, and look at his phone, or even read a book. He could borrow Lassiter's hardback copy of _Shiloh_, and pick up where he left off. That was alluring. Another thing, more like a sense of duty, wriggled around in his conscience. Connected to it, the dim glint of an idea. "Yeah, think I will."

Carlton ignored his sense of relief. While it was nice having a friend, even if it was Shawn, work was work. Shawn's presence filled the empty corners of the house, made everything seem a little brighter. Carlton understood it was temporary. He knew it would all fall apart as soon as he told Shawn what he'd done. He ignored that, too. It'd be like a Great Big Reset, and he wasn't sure Shawn would ever trust him again. He'd done it for Shawn's own good, and, still, all of this had happened. Perhaps it was the failure of his golden-hued intentions that upset him the most.


	23. Deary Ducks

**XXIII. Deary Ducks**

Shawn stayed in the lounge chair several minutes beyond Lassie's rather silent and sorta moody departure. In need of more tea, he fetched it from the kitchen and stopped to get his appendage. As he thought, his dad called him again. Shawn couldn't put it off anymore, and, now that he wanted something from his dad, hitting the call button was a little easier.

Henry said he was in the neighborhood—it was a lie, of course, and he would know Shawn was too smart to take it as anything but a lie. Henry didn't voluntarily spend a lot of time in that area of Santa Barbara, but he fabricated a story about a hardware store that sold custom stains at a better price than the bigger stores. And that wasn't a lie, just a task that Henry had been putting off for about three years.

He was unsurprised to find Shawn sunning himself in the backyard. It was not a warm day, but in the sun it was almost hot. Typical California springtime. He let himself in through the carport, and there was Shawn diagonal from him. "Tell me you have sunscreen on."

"Dad, I have sunscreen on."

"You are such a liar."

"Mmm," Shawn murmured, half-aware. "You told me to tell you. You didn't say anything about telling you the truth."

"Well, aren't you just a literal little shit? Why are you back at Lassiter's? I thought you went back to Mee Mee's."

"I did. I am. Just here for the moment. Do you think I have a backyard like this at Mee Mee's?" He wondered what year, what decade, his dad would learn that the house was supposed to be Shawn's and Adrian's. But would they have been happy there? As painful as it'd been for Shawn to lose the house, it was more painful to realize that it wouldn't have lasted. How did he know? He knew. The way that he knew that if he'd stayed at the house without Adrian, eventually he would've needed a roommate. Maybe that would've been Lassiter, if only temporarily. It was touching how things got moved around in one's dreams, then how those dreams got shifted around in reality.

When Henry took the other lounge chair, it was warm and felt good on his back. His sunglasses were on, and his shirt was loud and full of the colors of sunshine itself. He didn't have sunscreen on, either, a fact that prodded the nose of his son.

"I don't smell any coconut goodness coming from you, Pop. You don't have sunscreen on, either."

"So sue me." He added, after several seconds of thoughtful silence, "It's nice here. Quiet neighborhood."

"Lassie's barbecues can get out of hand," Shawn quipped, "so I've heard." He remembered skipping the cookout last Saturday, amid the hell and turmoil of his split with Adrian. "Hey, there's something I want to tell you so you don't worry about it anymore."

"You have a million dollars and can take care of me when I'm old?"

"No," Shawn returned, surprised by this. "Do you really want me to take care of you when you're old?"

"Yeah, when you put it that way—"

"Besides, you're in the prime of your life. You were only, what, fifteen when I was born?"

Against his better judgment, Henry chuckled at that. "Well, your mom _is _older than me."

"You've got lots of virile years left in you. You could still have more kids. That will, in turn, grow up to be rich adults who will use their millions to take care of you. And be a jerk to me because I'm the older, beautiful, more talented half-sibling."

"You should write soap operas."

"I'm considering it. Just like writing my _One Tree Hill _fanfic too much."

"But thanks for the optimistic thought. What did you want to tell me before we got on this topic? However the hell we got on this topic."

Shawn had momentarily forgotten, lost in the idea of his dad having another kid someday. What a weird idea. He could be thirty-five with a newborn brother. He didn't know if the notion was too horrifying, or just way too amusing. But who would get stuck babysitting? That's right. He would. He decided that he did not want his dad to procreate further. It'd be weird seeing a baby spawned by Henry's DNA, more than himself, since a baby would be round and bald, and probably resemble his dad in its present baby state more than it would when it grew into an adult. Everyone in the family knew that Shawn looked like his great-grandfather. Both of them, in fact, paternal _and _maternal. He sighed, returning to the maudlin sensation that benighted his more anecdotal daydreams.

"So, it's about me and Adrian."

Henry clasped his hands on his abdomen, jittering a little but otherwise calm. "What about you two? Did you make up?"

"No," Shawn said. It was an odd phrase to toss around, like his dad knew. But his dad was a cop, and perhaps he'd been able to seam together clues. Or Mom told him. It was more likely she'd told him. "No, I don't want to talk to him again."

Henry resisted the urge to whip off his sunglasses and stare at Shawn. He didn't move, just scrunched his fingers together to release the stress of this conversation. This was not easy on him, no more than it'd been on Shawn. But he hadn't talked much to Shawn for years, prior to his return to Santa Barbara. He kept tabs on him, sometimes through Maddie, sometimes through his ties at the police department and other agencies. He knew Shawn could not live a normal life because he was an extraordinary person. "Look, Shawn—sometimes people come in and out of our lives for no apparent reason. Sometimes they bring us things that we didn't know about ourselves. Insights. Gifts. Sometimes they help us develop talents, sometimes latent ones, sometimes stuff we didn't even know we had. And then they go. I'm sure that you've taken what you can from your," he briefly paused, "friendship with Adrian and have moved on."

"Not exactly. I mean, sort of. Mostly I just think he's a drunk asshole that treated me like shit—and I ran into one of his exes who said the same thing. And a little more, too. Adrian hit him."

This was alarming. Now, Henry did fulfill his instinct to whip off his sunglasses and stare at Shawn. "Did that bastard hit you?"

Shawn was already trying to turn his dad's temper and protectiveness to simmer. "Shh, Dad, indoor voices."

"But we're outside! And I can yell if I want! Shawn, did he _hit _you?"

Shawn was silent too long and Henry knew it too quickly. He roared out of his chair and almost tripped over it, almost lost his sunglasses. He was so flustered and dispirited and—and what was that feeling? He hadn't felt it in a while—enraged? Yes. But, no, that wasn't it. It was— It was— It was a kind of quiet, intense sadness.

Shawn waved a dismissive hand. "Only happened once, it was on the arm, and—"

"I'm going to kill him."

"Dad—I mean it—don't do anything—it wasn't a big deal. He didn't even remember it the next day. I told you he was a drunk asshole. And, anyway, it was just on the arm. The other guy got hit in the face. It took me until recently to even remember it happened. Well, we were both drinking at the time, me and Adrian. He took one swing at me, hit me. Took another swing at me, missed entirely, and I shoved him and he hit the floor, passed out. In the end, I think he fared worse."

Henry was oddly proud of Shawn's deft maneuvering. But what was he supposed to say? This was way out of his area. "Why did you tell this to me?"

"So you'd stop worrying about it. I'm fine. I'm back at the laundromat. I'm working. I solved the case of the body in holding—" He knew that his father would latch to the case and Adrian's drunken pugilism would be forgotten, as it should be.

"You solved the case? How? When?"

"This morning. And with the help of Adrian's ex that I mentioned."

He helped his dad right the overturned lounge chair. Knowing that he'd have to tell the whole story, Shawn brought his dad into the kitchen for iced tea and whatever cookies were around. Henry wasn't usually a sucker for cookies, but Shawn still had some Lorna Doone left, and Henry liked those. It was one of the few things they had in common. He expected his dad to like shrimp or fish flavored cookies, but a biscuit of commercial shortbread was enough for him.

Shawn wasted no time discussing cookies, getting too close to the reason that he wanted his dad there. When he'd wound down the tale of how he'd found the name of the body, stopping only so his dad could admire his son's determination and Lassiter's willingness to jump into a dumpster, he told his dad the name—

"Jasper Collins. He might be one of Adrian's cousins. And Lassie said he had something to do with the Collins Bank going under about ten years ago." As Shawn hoped, Henry took the bait and started opening up.

"Yeah, two of those Collins guys killed themselves. I always thought those were suspicious deaths myself, but no one believed me and it became fairly obvious, even with forensics being what they were ten years ago, that it was suicide. GSR is GSR, and if it was on their hands—"

"They _shot _themselves?" Shawn had not known the gory details of the case; he'd mostly skimmed newspaper articles.

"Come on, Shawn. You know most men commit suicide by shooting themselves. Women prefer pills or poison. It's just—nature, I guess. As much as any of that's natural. But these guys were in it _bad_, Shawn, and I do mean bad! They were as guilty as a summer's day is long. Jasper was the younger brother, and the two older ones said in their notes that he didn't have much knowledge of what was going on. But they had set it up in such a way that it made Jasper look a little more guilty."

"He was their fall guy?"

"Yeah, well, they tried to make him their fall guy. But when these guys offed themselves, it was with a genuine reason. They did it on the same day, maybe within an hour or two of each other. It was planned ahead of time, the only reason, when preliminary evidence came in, that made me think it _was _suicide. But they'd pissed off a lot of people, and they had targets on their backs. Their notes arrived at various places a few days later. They had dropped them off at the same post office—the one off State Street—and they popped up, like I said, a few days later. The police department got one. So did the bank manager. And Jasper. Jasper got one."

"You never arrested him."

"The judge felt that his brothers' deeds were criminal, yes, but that the suicide notes exonerated him. There wasn't evidence. Even the FBI got involved, and couldn't find anything to convict. Jasper spent eighteen months in psychiatric care. Alcohol rehab off and on ever since."

Shawn pulled a face. "And the rest of his family?" He knew where this was going.

"Never talked to him again. He was ostracized. But he knew he was right, that he was innocent—"

"So he didn't care if he talked to them again."

"Sometimes, even when you're proven innocent, you fare worse in a lot of ways. Jasper was one of those, unfortunately. If it is the same guy, I'm glad he was able to start his own company and make something of himself," Henry said, being fair to a guy to whom life had been criminally unfair. "To be honest with you, if it is the same Jasper Collins, and it sounds like it is, I'm glad he's out of his misery, and I'm glad he went peacefully. He deserved that, at least."

"Yeah, sounds like it," Shawn agreed.

"As I recall, he always was a bit more into technical, mechanical stuff than finances."

"Fountains might've been his hobby," Shawn elucidated.

Henry nodded. "Maybe they were."

Like the busted one Shawn had seen in the dumpster behind Hollister Fountains & Water Care. So familiar—an item handmade that Shawn had seen off and on throughout the last year of his life. He would know it anywhere. It was a one-of-a-kind item. A gift from a cousin to a cousin.

Shawn made a decision, after checking his phone to see if Lassiter had contacted him. Nothing. He wondered about Gus, but decided he would fill in his fragile friend later. He gave his dad a squeeze on the shoulder. "I gotta get to the station."

Shawn was not a conduit of revenge. To show any sort of belligerence towards Adrian for what he'd done was simply impossible. What wasn't impossible was admitting that, for the first time since last Saturday, he actually considered it. The look on his dad's face—the look on Will's—and it was impossible to stop Adrian from hurting anyone else. Adrian had said he hadn't done anything wrong. Fiercely, first out of hurt, Shawn hadn't believed it. Now, out of compunction, he disbelieved it. He couldn't make Adrian see what he'd done wrong. He couldn't make Adrian change. He could only see that there was nothing he could do, and the sense of helplessness burned in him. He wished someone would take the hot iron of pain out of his stomach. He wished he could hit Adrian in the face with a hot iron...

He was over-sympathizing with Jasper Collins. That was obvious. Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone taken advantage of by scheming brothers. Someone that was exiled from his clan for the wrong reasons. These were not necessarily things that Shawn had gone through himself—his own choices in life, however terrible they might've been, were still his own choices—but they were things that could've happened to him. Could've happened to anyone.

He knew a little of the Collins clan. Most of Adrian's cousins met with through the last year were a Collins by birth or marriage. When he got to know Adrian better, even after the night of cousin Sissy's graduation party, Shawn had grasped several ideas of Adrian's family, some which stood out more than others: they were clannish, they were rich, they spoiled themselves, and they were used to their lives. There was nary a ruffle among them. Adrian was hardly the only openly-gay member of his family. The Collins family's sense of inclusivity did not, somehow, include family jailbirds. If the disaster with the Collins bank was mentioned at all, Shawn would have certainly picked up on it.

But he did remember that Brooke had an "old bank building" downtown that she'd been trying to sell for a while. Probably ten years. That was the closest Shawn got to gleaning any information regarding the Collins family, the bank, and, as the phrase on the back of books usually went, "the scandal that rocked them."

Shawn gave his dad a glance at the wheel. Tense and quiet, Henry Spencer had been veering through traffic and taking the backroads to get to the station in a hurry. That he knew all the shortcuts to _La Palace de la_ _Figueroa_ didn't surprise Shawn. His dad's calmness was the surprise.

"Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you work that case at all? The Collins Bank case."

"No. That was a more White Collar kind of crime. Too financial for me. For some reason, I always got the gory stuff. Temp Masters always got the financial cases."

Templeton Masters—Shawn smirked at the name. He hadn't thought of it in ages. It was a name that reminded him of a Dickens character, or like his own selection of wild and unlikely aliases. Templeton Masters might've supplied the idea for those wild and unlikely aliases, now that Shawn thought about it.

There was likely to be a paper trail and a pretty thick file on the bank case. Shawn had a hunch that Lassiter would have it on his desk already. He might've even called in Juliet and/or Gus. This was the sort of cryptic puzzle, an unruly and disorderly ending to a once-simple case, that brought excitement to Lassiter. It made Shawn sigh. He liked seeing Lassiter get excited.

"Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry. I should've told you that Adrian hit me. I should've told you he was an asshole."

"That's all right. You told me now. And, yeah, I still want to kill him. Not literally, I guess. I just wish I could take all the bad parts of him and erase them so that they don't exist for you anymore. That's what I want. I don't want him to exist for your sake."

"You wouldn't be my dad otherwise."

Henry didn't hear him. "Maybe I can at least smash his eyeballs in. Or sock him in the jaw. Hang him up by his toes. I haven't decided yet."

"Hang him by his toes? I think you were a pirate in another life, Dad."

Henry braked hard at a red light, sending them into a sharp forward tilt. He had a tendency to drive aggressively when he was angry. Anger and being in a hurry might make them less likely to reach the station without getting into a car collision.

"I just wish you would like yourself better rather than getting involved with people who make you feel like shit to make themselves feel better."

Damn, Shawn thought, if only it were that easy! He did not discuss that aspect of it, though, but took a different approach. "Why would it be any different than two guys rough housing? You never got into a bit of drunken fisticuffs with a guy friend of yours?"

"Yeah, Temp Masters."

Shawn couldn't help but snicker. Temp Masters was a pencil-thin man who, in the 80s, had had a pencil-thin mustache and wore pleated khakis, white shirts with skinny black ties, and a pocket protector. Glasses, too, in case you were wondering. Thinning gold-brown hair. Magnanimous but shrewd blue eyes. He was the type who wouldn't hurt a fly. "You got in a fight with Temp Masters?"

"Don't try to change the subject." Because, Henry knew that as soon as they reached the police station, Shawn wouldn't talk about this anymore, and he wanted to keep him talking. "The next time you start seeing someone," his ears burned at the tips, "in whatever way that is," insert smooth recovery here, "would you please show a little more care? Check your own confidence before you rush into anything. And make sure he isn't going to drink like a fish."

That was the closest they would ever come to talking about it, at least for the next several months. Shawn used his right hand to draw an "X" over his heart, raised it to add depth to his oath. "I promise. The next person I start seeing will be calm, rational, boring, and have a steady job, no weird family members, and no history of hitting anyone. Unless it's a boxer—or an MMA superstar—or a cop," he threw on merely to satisfy his father; he didn't doubt that Henry would've been pleased to see him settled with a police officer. That would really be swift and pure and humorous irony in a lot of ways. "There. Happy?"

"It should make _you _happy, that's the point! Can't you see what I'm saying here? It's _you _who should look out for himself! You need to treat yourself better, Shawn. I don't know what would've lured you in to someone like Adrian—"

"He was attractive, vibrant, and spent a lot of money on us. Nobody's perfect."

"But those are such shallow qualities—"

"Dad, stop." Shawn was looking out the windshield. A light was red, and a car ahead of them was braking.

"You should want to—"

"STOP! Dad, STOP!"

Henry gathered what he meant and slammed on the brakes. Once again, they shot forward in their seats. This time, the seat belts locked in place. Shawn's shoulder was jerked, and he'd thrown his hands against the dashboard to keep himself from flying into it. Ahead of them, a suggested inch or two separated them from the bumper of the car in front of them.

"That was close," Shawn said, assessing himself, the adrenaline pouring through his body. "Maybe we should talk about something else. Or I can drive. Dad, pull over, find a place to park, let me drive."

Henry wondered if that wasn't a good idea. He found a space on the next side road, and maneuvered the truck into it with a deftness that comes with longevity. Instead of driving the rest of the way, it was only two blocks and they let their feet take them there. It was not a quiet walk, not soothing to their souls.

"You're right," Shawn eventually said, hoping to put an end to the tension between them, at least about Adrian. "You're right, I should be more careful, more self-aware, when I start seeing someone. I don't think I will see anyone, though, not for a good, long, long while. No one that I don't already know." Which could include Will Lissner, or not—Shawn wasn't sure. They had too much history, and wouldn't it be weird? Plus, there was something that bothered him about Will. Too cunning? Too cute? It could be an evil combination. He tried to stay focused. "And I promise that the next person I see will have depth and not just shallow qualities, even if those shallow qualities are more appealing. Maybe I'm too deep and I like people that aren't."

Henry couldn't help snickering. It sounded like he was mocking the insight, but, upon further investigation, wondered if it wasn't closer to the truth. Shawn was a flippant, mercurial person, and maybe he liked being pampered and laughed at and the center of attention in another person's shallow, magical world. He just wished his son would aim a little higher. Date someone that was more stable, more down to earth, someone that did _not _indulge him_. _Like Lassiter, but, you know, Girl Lassiter. Preferably Girl Lassiter, but, at that point, Henry was done trying to figure out _anything _about Shawn, let alone personal proclivities.

Shawn crossed his arms, observing the urban view of Santa Barbara. He could feel the hollows of his bones. "Maybe I'm going through a crisis or something."

"Everyone's always in a crisis. First rule of being a cop. Everyone you meet has something going on."

At first, Shawn saw this as a deflection, Dad showing off his cop knowledge, and once again rubbing it in that Shawn had not gone into law enforcement. At least, not the badge-wearing kind. The more he analyzed the statement, the more Shawn read into it something he might've missed had he been in a cheerier frame of mind. "Even Adrian."

Henry made an open gesture. "It's likely, isn't it? Did he have anything going on when the two of you, uh, met?"

"There was some tension in the family, but he never told me what it was about. By the time we started, uh, hanging out more in July, it was gone." Shawn didn't want to go into detail. He didn't want to recount Adrian's behavior to his dad. That was too much. "I think it had something to do with his dad's side of the family."

"The Collinses."

"Yeah. His mom is Jojo Motte Harris. I didn't know—don't know—much about her, except that her family used to own some kind of store in Ventura," Shawn said. "It went out of business years ago, way before Adrian was born, and maybe even before his parents met and married. I don't know what she did with herself, professionally. She seemed nice enough. Liked me well enough, laughed at my jokes. She didn't spoil Adrian or Brooke like their dad did."

"The Collinses are very privileged," Henry added, remembering the interviews of the Collins family to follow-up with the bank case, and the subsequent suicides. "It was weird, you know, it wasn't really a huge scandal, the fall of the bank. Two or three months passed after the two brothers died, everyone seemed to forget about it. Well, 9/11 happened, and maybe that's really what got our minds off of it. Nothing distracts from a bit of news like a bigger bit of news."

"Ain't that the truth?" Shawn couldn't wait for the next case to come along, just to get away from this. He wanted to say something about it to someone, but didn't know who to say it to. Saying it to his dad was out of the question. He decided to test his ability to text and walk at the same time, which his dad frowned upon. He sent the message to Lassiter: "I think it's weird that this case involves the Collinses. We're almost there. Bringing dad."


	24. In Spirit as in Substance

**XXIV. In Spirit as in Substance**

Lassiter read the text Shawn had sent, while seated at his desk. He had taken the time last night, during one of his not-sleeping periods, to assign a new text alert sound to Shawn's messages. Instead of Beethoven, it was Tchaikovsky, a slice of the "Russian Dance" from _The Nutcracker_. It reminded him of Shawn's bounciness. He texted back with the thumbs-up emoji, unable to think of anything that was more responsive. It was weird that the case involved the family Shawn had just deracinated himself from, however abruptly. Lassiter had tried to find a way for it to become more connected, for it to bring Shawn into it using a false push and a lot of manipulation. It wouldn't budge, and was stuck beneath the degrading title of Coincidence. Lassiter winced at the reminder. It seemed unreal.

Tugged into a conscience riddled with uncertainty, Lassiter whipped the phone off the cradle and reached the medical examiner's office.

"This is Strode."

"This is Detective Lassiter."

"Oh, hey, if it isn't Lestrade. What's up? Did you and Shawn use the ice cream coupon?" Strode was one of those, of a small number of people within a small circle, that wanted Lassiter and Shawn to spend more time together.

"Look, um," Lassiter hedged around the personal question, not sure how his actions with Shawn reached the pinnacle of personal, "you've been trying to reach me, and I wondered if the—"

"If the tox results finally came back?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, they did." Strode said. "But you don't get them until you apologize."

"Apologize for?"

"Ignoring me for two days."

Lassiter heaved his eyeballs upward, rolled them back down with his eyelids closing. He resisted the temptation to groan. This was more than he wanted to put up with. "It's been—I've been—busy. Cop stuff. I'm sorry." He said it without even really meaning to say it. Maybe he really was sorry. He tried to say it again just to see how it felt, like water seeping out of stone. "I'm sorry it took me nearly three days to get back to you. Did you get the information I sent over? About his identity?"

"Apology accepted. And, yes, I did. Jasper Collins, eh? Should've recognized him. Although he doesn't look a thing like his brothers. And he's all bloated from drink and his skin's leathery from smoking. Ah, well, we all have vices. No judgments. Would you like to know what's in the tox, Detective?"

That was why he called. He swallowed down a rush of anger and frustration. Some days, all he wanted to do was go home, sit in the backyard in the sun with an iced tea. He thought about the silver fox who curled up in the oak barrel and went to sleep— The fog filled in, however, before he let his little daydream sink him down too far. "Yeah—yeah, I would. Please."

"Well, nothing there that would've killed him outright, but something that was on its way to killing him," Strode said, bringing up Jasper Collins' chart on the iPad, "but that I recall—yes, here it is—found you, my sneaky little friend—that there was a slight indication that his blood was too acidic."

"Acidic? Look, Doc, biology isn't really my thing. I know the basics, but—"

"You've heard of pH balance, right? Shampoo commercials and so forth?"

"Sure. Plants and soils and things."

"Oh, right, you're more of a succulents guy. Forgot. Well, think of the soil of your little succulents becoming like ash, not full of the nutrients that little succulents need to maintain their wee adorable green leaves. It's sort of like that. Old Jasper's blood had a pH balance of—lemme see here—6.1. I won't get his medical records until tomorrow morning, since today is," he yawned greatly, "Sunday—"

Lassiter held in a yawn of his own. "Right."

"But I'll bet you anything that when I do get them, I'll find a blood test, maybe done in the last six weeks or so, that says his pH was slightly higher, maybe about seven or slightly above. Still below average."

"What's that mean, though?"

"Oh, you know, with him and the size of his liver, I'd say it has something to do with alcohol consumption."

"But if he was going through some medical condition when he died—"

"He might've been. We doctors like to call it acidosis. Alkalosis is when a person's blood is too alkaline. But we're talking acidosis here."

"Would he have symptoms?"

"Nah—well, maybe a few. At his age, yeah. He would've been tired. But if he drank a lot, I don't know that he would've noticed any fatigue outside of what the alcohol provided. Mmm, sweet, sweet alcohol. Nothing like a little whisky in a cup of warm milk to put you to sleep at night, am I right? Invisible high-five, Lassie!"

"So, uh," Lassiter stalled and pushed the thought of a warm cup of milk and some genuine sleep out of his own imaginal realm, "would Collins have just found a place to take a nap and died in his sleep?"

"Sure, that's possible. Best way to die, in my opinion, in one's sleep. I mean, if you gotta go—and we all do—I hope I die in my sleep."

Just not in the middle of an abandoned store. But why the store? That didn't make any sense. "So, he might've been dying when we brought him in that night."

"Most definitely."

That did not make Lassiter feel better. Collins had seemed groggy, yes. Tired, yes. They had mistaken it for drunkenness.

"There wouldn't have been anything you could've done," Strode said, nearly sensing how the detective was feeling. "He would've died, anyway. Even if he had thought he was going to die, and felt any symptoms related to acidosis, he still passed away of natural causes. It wasn't acidosis that killed him, he just happened to be suffering from it. It causes shock, and it's usually the shock that kills people."

"All right. That doesn't really make me feel better. Thanks, Doctor."

"Oh, I'm not a doctor, I just play one on TV," Strode said. "Tell Shawn I said hi."

Lassiter hung up just as Shawn and Henry appeared in the main grotto. The station was quiet, work hadn't exactly picked up, and only a few officers milled around. Others were patrolling, and Arlette, an additional detective, was on an investigation. With the lack of others around, Lassiter was very aware of Henry and Shawn. Tension was there, but he couldn't place why, or if it had bloomed outside the usual conditions that ripened when Shawn and Henry were in the same room. Lassiter got up from the desk, unable to handle the feel of being small beneath the glower of Henry and the pinched, pained look Shawn emoted.

Lassiter didn't tell them a whole lot, only that they were waiting for a warrant to search Collins' business, that he had notified the next of kin.

"Who was the next of kin?" Henry wanted to know, his arms crossed over a sunny yellow shirt covered with a light-gray hoodie.

Lassiter avoided looking at Shawn, suddenly finding the top of his desk very attractive. "Andre Collins."

Shawn's pinched face went slack, then tightened into itself again. Adrian's dad was next of kin. "What were they?"

Carlton knew what kind of answer the vague question required. He could see the ripples, growing into big waves, that were then dancing with Shawn's regular stampede of ideas. "First cousins. His sister—Jasper's sister—died three years ago. It's only the cousins he has left now."

That would make Adrian a second cousin to Jasper Collins. Gus would be able to tell how many times removed; Shawn did not understand that stuff, even if he knew a great many things in the world, like how to make an origami crane and had once fixed a shoe of his with a safety pin and a piece of gum. Family connections, he didn't know those. He hadn't known outright that Adrian and Jasper Collins were second cousins. They never talked about it. Adrian hadn't mentioned that he was related to the people who embezzled money from their own bank. Why would that come up in conversation?

"Did they—" Shawn started the question, then, when both his dad and Lassiter looked at him, he couldn't ask. He couldn't know yet. "Never mind."

Henry glanced quickly at Shawn, detected nothing out of the ordinary, then back to Carlton. "Are they going to handle the arrangements?"

"As far as I know," Lassiter claimed. "I spoke to Andre myself a few minutes ago, and he said he'd contact Dr. Strode's office in order to make arrangements."

"Iger and York," Shawn mumbled. Heavy eyeballs burned against him. "Iger and York, it's the funeral home they always use." He paused, reflecting. "We went to a few funerals. Distant cousins. And Adrian's great aunt Viola died in November. Iger and York, all three of them. I never saw Jasper before, not at any family gathering. They were a tight clan—why didn't they ever talk to him? I could think of a few cousins who'd be proud—maybe that's not the right word—that Jasper had escaped embezzlement charges. I can't figure it out."

It puzzled him, and continued to do so throughout the day. He'd come to the station to find information, not to _give _information, as his dad had originally believed. When Shawn heard what he'd wanted, that Adrian and Jasper were second cousins, most of the vroom went out of him. He feigned indifference when the warrant arrived to search Jasper's place of business, and dismissed Lassiter's attempts to get him to come along.

"I don't have the energy just now," Shawn responded. He was sitting in the conference room downstairs, not his usual hiding spot at the station. It was cooler down there, across from booking and a couple corners away from the holding cells where this whole tumultuous nothing began.

Lassiter leaned against the table, palms against it, and Shawn two feet away. "I know this must make you feel weird."

"I don't think you know the half of it. But I'm not preoccupied in the way you might think."

Lassiter wasn't sure what he was thinking, and rather wished Shawn would try his hand at untangling those thoughts. "In what way are you preoccupied?"

He scooted aside the newspaper crossword he'd been working on. It'd been left in the conference room three months ago. Shawn worked on it off and on, when he was there, when he stole a moment away from the mayhem. It'd been eerily still lately. Or had he not been around? Hadn't he missed it? He guessed nothing had been missed so bad that his mind ached for data and his body needed something to do. His internal moon had found a new soul to fling itself around. "I just can't stop thinking about how isolated Jasper must've been. All that family—and no one spoke to him? Why?"

Carlton could do nothing here but shrug.

Shawn didn't know if he could elucidate his misgivings and express his convoluted, intricate responses. "There must be more than we think."

"Very likely."

"Something else must've happened."

"It's not a homicide, Shawn." Lassiter doubted he was helpful. "The family's been informed. They'll take it from here."

Shawn didn't believe him. The coolness in his eyes said it. "Then why did you order a search warrant for his shop?"

"I got peeved when Andre Collins said he wouldn't let us in."

"Again, why? What's it to them?"

"That's what I want to know, too. But it's still not a homicide. I talked to Strode. He said something about the acid levels in his blood—"

"Strode's blood?"

Carlton pulled a face. "You know I meant Jasper's."

"It really wasn't entirely clear. What about his blood? Vampire?"

"The acid levels were low—or too high? I'm not really sure. It's all a little science-y for me. But I can tell you that I've been a detective for," he suddenly felt old and did not feel like saying how long he'd been a detective, "never mind how long, and I've picked up on a lot of forensics through the years. Acid levels and pH balances? Not a clue. Are you sure you don't want to come with us? We could make Officer Ballas jump into the dumpster. Could be exciting."

Shawn smirked at the proposition. No one really liked Ballas. He was kind of a jerk. Then again, no one could really pinpoint why he was a jerk. It was the things he said and the way he said them, hooked and barbed and salted with rudeness. Thankfully, he was requesting a transfer, and perhaps he would be cursing another station with his passive rudeness soon.

"Tempting as that sounds, I think I'll stay here." He kind of wanted to go home. He kind of wanted to take the bike, drive to Ventura, and find out what had happened. Guiltily, Shawn looked at Lassie. The silence hummed between them. Shawn plucked at it. "I can't believe I'm asking this, because normally I wouldn't ask for permission, just forgiveness," he waited while Lassiter snickered at the truth, "but I wondered if you might allow me to use your computer?"

Shawn was right: he did not normally ask for permission to do something like that. He would do it anyway. If caught, he'd say he was sorry, he'd solve the case anyway, and everyone would forgive his shenanigans and the ruthless actions that bordered unlawful, yet were never quite deplorable. Carlton gave his permission with a nod, only upon the condition that Shawn head upstairs with him right then. Carlton started having doubts before they got to the staircase leading to the front doors. He called to Shawn, making them stop. It seemed very quiet and very still, and chaos seemed far away.

"Are you sure you're okay with this? I mean, I know you pretty well, Spencer. If I hadn't given you permission to use my computer to do whatever it is you want to do—read Scooby-Doo fanfic or whatever—I kind of think you'd leave, get on that bike of yours, maybe magically find yourself in Ventura. Maybe find a way to talk to a member of Jasper Collins' family just to get the answers you think you need. You don't really need those answers. You know that, don't you? Sometimes, when bad things happen, there are no good answers to why and what's going to happen next and whether or not it'll happen in the future. Sometimes, it can be better if we just let that stuff go."

Shawn blinked, his eyes burning from staying open too long. The air was cool, moved and shifted against his eyeballs, drying them out. He tried to shift around the spit in his mouth to swallow, but nothing came of that. He fidgeted, playing with the cuff of the hoodie, and scratching an imaginary itch in the palm. "I'm not getting on my bike, and I'm not going to Ventura. As much as I want to. There are no answers for me there. I know that sometimes I have to let things go. That there aren't answers. I don't even know what questions to ask anymore."

Carlton held his breath for a second, let it out slowly with the words he dredged from history. "'For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.'"

_Yeats_, Shawn's brain automatically answered. _The Stolen Child_. "I can understand a lot, but not this. I don't get this." He continued up the staircase unimpeded.

The chief had come in, thanks to the impending search at Hollister Fountains & Water Care. The small team of four assembled in her office for a briefing. Shawn was still seated at Carlton's desk, looking listlessly at the computer screen.

"He's not coming?" Karen asked of Lassiter, who already shook his head and dug around in his pockets for lint. She was surprised, but the shock of it didn't run deep. She shrugged it off quickly. After reading what she had of Lassiter's newly-updated file, she thought she understood why. Adrian Harris-Collins was a notoriously awful flirt, known for getting in and out of relationships, and she wondered how in the hell Shawn had met him in the first place. Probably a fluke occurrence. Chaos had brought them together, and it was probably chaos that ripped them apart.

She sent the two officers ahead. Ballas tried to stall, but Vick, not putting up with his attitude that afternoon, sent him along. "Lassiter, stay a second. Shut the door."

He shut the door, wondering, for a fleeting second, if his head was going to end up on a chopping block. "I sent you the information as soon as I had it—"

"It's not that. I don't really know what's going on, and, in so many ways has that been true lately, but I know Shawn broke up with someone, and it was hard on him, and he's been like a scarecrow ever since. Considering that he's sitting at your desk right now and not interested in tying up loose ends I made him fray to begin with—I have to ask, based on my own conjecture, was Shawn's ex Adrian Harris-Collins? The lawyer. And the biggest Lothario this side of the Santa Ynez?"

Carlton was relieved—and equally intrigued. How did she know? Was it really just the one small clue that Shawn didn't want to have anything else to do with this case because the body was Adrian's second cousin? "How in the—?"

"I have a cousin," Karen reluctantly started to answer, "and don't make me finish the rest of that sentence."

Carlton didn't need her to. The blanks were easily filled in. Adrian had left a long line of broken-hearted men in his wake, some more bruised than others. His hands went into fists. "I don't know a lot about it," he admitted, outwardly cool.

"Come on, despite the fact that you're a man, you're a really lousy liar, Carlton."

He suspected that O'Hara was really the one that chief should talk to. He sensed—his magical gut again—that she knew more than he did, though there were aspects he could look up but was just choosing not to. O'Hara would have more curiosity, and she'd have Gus egging her on. She probably knew what he didn't want to know. "Yeah, they were together. About a year. Or maybe not a year, I'm not sure. It's a little vague. About a year. Adrian said some things to him that were not very nice," he stopped, not sure how much he should reveal, "and he might've been a little, uh," he didn't want to use the word, now that it sounded too clinical and too violent when used in conjunction with a real-life soul that he knew and cared for, "Adrian might've been a drunken asshole more often than I can suppose. Shawn doesn't want to involve himself in this case more than necessary."

The tendons on Vick's neck popped out as she spoke through a tight jaw. "Adrian Harris-Collins _hit _him? Shawn? _Our _Shawn?"

It was nice to hear her get so possessive of him, too: _our Shawn_. But Carlton waved a hand. "I don't know. That was just the—the feeling I got."

Vick's eyelids narrowed, but at least the tendons in her neck retreated. She made a long string of faintly grumbled curses that ended up in a mildly coherent sentence. "—does anything like that again, someone needs to tell that boy that love like that isn't real—" She seemed to snap to attention all at once. "Then what's he doing on your computer?"

Carlton knew, without knowing how he knew or at what ambiguous, obscure point in the past his mind and Shawn's had melded. Perhaps not exactly along similar seams, nothing was perfect, but he knew what Shawn was doing. "If I had a guess, I'd say he's reading what he can about the Collins Bank case. He wants to understand, like all of us would want to understand, how a family like the Collinses can be okay with ousting one of their own. I don't think he'll ever get it. But here's hoping."

Over-identifying, Karen thought. Well, she'd leave Shawn to it. If he could figure out the problem while reading newspaper articles from ten years ago, more power to him. She flicked a hand at him when he looked over at their departing gait. He looked tired and thin, and she wondered if he'd eaten anything lately.

"Are you _feeding _him?" Karen asked Carlton. The accusation that he was treating Shawn like a goldfish, or one of his succulents, didn't make her calm down any. Carlton was the only one Shawn had spent any time around lately. Happy as she was about it, now was not the time to gloat over small victories.

"I am not responsible for Shawn Spencer," he retorted. He got behind the wheel of his car, unsurprised the find the chief swinging into the passenger's seat. Driving wasn't one of her favorite things. "And, yes, damn it. I took him to IHOP yesterday morning. I _think _we ate something this morning, but I can't remember. Oh. Cinnamon rolls. Shawn made cinnamon rolls."

Karen gave him a look.

"What? He did. They were delicious."

"Last night? What about last night?"

"He was—was out with someone—"

"A date?"

Carlton thought this conversation was getting really out of hand. "It's not what you think. It was with someone that actually hired Shawn to find to person that turned out to be Jasper Collins. This guy works at the massage parlor—For Keeps. The one whose business card was found at the grocery store."

"Englers," Vick said, grasping at one thing she could comprehend. She pulled out her phone and found a recently-dialed number. "Yes, I'd like to place an order for delivery. Three large pizzas—"

Carlton smirked, gave a shake of his head, and kept on driving. He knew where he was going, anyway, and he didn't know what he'd find when he got there.

He managed to snap a picture with his phone of Ballas during his jump into the dumpster, and sent it to Shawn. There was no reply. When they were finishing up the search, the small stream of possible evidence or conspicuous items making their way out of Hollister Fountains & Water Care, Carlton felt apprehensions stirring within. He called Shawn's mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. He called his desk, and no one answered. He called the desk sergeant, and finally got an answer. The reply regarding Shawn's whereabouts was not particularly satisfying. Shawn could still be at the station, Lassiter guessed, but no one had seen him in ten or fifteen minutes. If Shawn had found something that triggered him, what was to stop him from going to Ventura and talking to Adrian?

"Whoa, what's the rush, Detective!" Karen shouted, holding the handle above the door as Lassiter took a turn at thirty. The wheels got grippy against the road. She felt her insides pucker and her butt slide to one side. Then, mercifully, everything was righted.

"Sorry," he grumbled, offering nothing but the apology. His foot pressed the pedal down. It was a yellow light—then a glaringly red one—that he blew the car through. "Sorry," he said just as Vick started protesting again.

But the next light he had to stop at, there was no way around it. They were not in a hurry, no gumball shining red on the roof, no sirens echoing through downtown. He did pull out his phone and call Shawn again. No answer—and straight to voicemail. Maybe he was just in the video room, napping. Maybe he was eating the pizza Vick had sent over. Maybe—maybe he'd hopped a bus and was now facing off with Adrian. He thought about calling his desk again but the light turned green. He gunned it, slammed on the brakes when a car coming from the south blew threw the just-changed light. It'd been close, just not close enough for Carlton to show much awe or concern.

Vick figured it out on her own. "Shawn's not answering his phone," she deduced. "You're worried."

"Yeah," he replied. "You can sit there and speculate on why I'm worried, or you can call the front desk."

She called the front desk, already aware of why they should worry. The last thing she wanted to do was drive to Ventura to break Shawn out of jail. Adrian was the type who'd call the cops on Shawn. She'd always thought he was a smarmy little bastard. "Call if you see him," she informed the desk sergeant when the answer came. "We're almost there."

The last three blocks seemed to take eons to complete. Stomach in knots and full of adrenaline to the point where he was quivering, Lassiter zipped out of the car and took the stairs two at a time. He pulled the door in, whooshing himself in the face with wind and station-smell. Up another flight of stairs, he could see his desk from where he stood, and the chair was empty. He looked around, for a moment hopeful that Shawn would pop around a corner, suddenly materialize from a shadow held by a vacant door. Nothing.

In the bin next to his desk, Lassiter saw two soiled napkins and a paper plate with tell-tale tomato sauce smears. Shawn had likely eaten pizza, only two pieces, and had tossed the waste. He heard Vick behind him talking to Officer Tyas, the tech guy.

"We found what we think is Collins' cell phone. Can you pull up his most recent calls?"

"Yeah, of course, Chief," Tyas said. He was an affable sort that loved a good mystery, and loved helping people, almost as much as he loved his gadgets. His gadgets were preferable; he was one of the few cops in the SBPD that hadn't married or divorced yet, and preferred being single. More money to spend on himself, Lassiter had once heard him joke at a work picnic last year.

Lassiter, too, wanted to know to whom Collins had last spoken. He had a weird feeling—but that would be ridiculous. It was true. He was no more psychic than Shawn, and he couldn't believe that his gut instincts were taking their suppositions so far. Too far.

On the computer, Lassiter found traces of what Shawn had been reading. He hadn't cleared the browser history, a maneuver very unlike Shawn. Shawn tended to be clever about deleting his presence, but Lassiter always seemed to know when Shawn had been on his computer. Maybe a crumb on the mouse. Maybe an oleaginous sensation to the "E" key on the keyboard. Sometimes, it was just that smell of Shawn that lingered in the area. What _was _that smell? It vaulted through a gauntlet of scents: freshly-washed clothes, coffee, cardboard, soil and plants, a watery and oceanic kind of smell—and sometimes the peach Snuggle that Carlton had at home. He'd known that Shawn had been using his laundry since he moved in. Not all the time. Most of the time. But he didn't have to be the best detective in the Santa Barbara Police Department to know that.

Shawn had been looking through newspapers using the station's login. How Shawn had gleaned his passwords, Lassiter didn't know and didn't analyze too deeply. It was Shawn, after all. There was either not a lot to know, or too much to know. Too little to reprimand, or too much to praise. He fanned a palm across his forehead, wishing he could find insight into Shawn's current location.

Lassiter went on a search of the station, going everywhere he could think of, from the mysterious small room off the downstairs conference room, to the men's bathroom on the third floor that no one ever used because it was creepy and one of the toilets ran constantly. No one. No Shawn. He was not at the station.

Carlton was confused, worry kneading his stomach.

If he were Shawn, what would he do?

He found Tyas and Vick in the video room, where Tyas spent most of his days and a little bit of his nights. Vick looked up at him, but Tyas was bent on his work.

"I have to go," Lassiter said.

Vick edged him out the door, her voice dropping to a level just above Impossible To Hear Whisper. "Do you reach Shawn?"

"No," he answered in a solid, regular voice. He had nothing to hide, least of all from Tyas, whose romantic ambiguities included a framed and autographed picture of Steve Jobs, who'd once joked that he wished to be buried with his original Mac Classic model that he'd had since a teenager. His thoughts flickered back to Shawn. They'd been doing that a lot lately. "But I think I know where he is."

Vick started to say that she'd go with him, but Lassiter interrupted.

"No, just—let me go alone. I think I know what's bothering him."

Vick held him there with a stare, hands at her hips. "Sure you don't want that benefits package, Carlton?"

Before he could gripe about that old joke, Tyas remarked from within that he was close to getting the numbers—then, as the two of them moved closer to the computer—the numbers came up. They were attached to names that Jasper had saved in his phone contacts. Lassiter read the top one—the last call Jasper had made—and the second-to-last number he'd called. He looked once at Vick.

"I'll send a team behind you," she said, gesturing. "You know where he is, don't you?"

"Yeah. You do, too."

"Yeah. I do. Would you please just get out of here? NOW!"

Getting all he could out of her, the warmth and gentle ozone smell of the tech room was left behind.

Lassiter had to get home as fast as possible.


	25. A Few Little Beasts

**XXV. A Few Little Beasts**

Juliet had been right: buying a new table for their place _did _make Gus feel better. Nothing like dropping $800 on a new piece of furniture to draw and inspire unity in their love-match, and their forthcoming nuptials. It was no wonder couples bought pets together. He and Juliet didn't need pets. They needed $800 tables. Well, just the one table, for now.

And now what he needed to do was get rid of the old one. This was no easy task. Juliet's desire to be philanthropic with the thing by offering it to Lassiter complicated the matter. Neither of them could get a hold of Lassiter. Juliet called him twice that afternoon, and frowned at her phone when it kept going directly to voicemail. Gus had tried reaching him, too, but the results were the same.

"I can't reach Shawn, either," he said, having just then dialed Shawn's number. Direct to voicemail. He didn't want to say what he was thinking. His future wife didn't mind so much, as they stood, arms crossed, and stared at the old table taking up no space at all in the dining room. Now that they didn't need it, they didn't want it; they wanted it to go away as soon as possible.

"Maybe they're in bed together." She almost managed to hold in a grin. It smeared across her lips, unfinished. "You know, napping."

He was relieved to have the image somewhat altered in his imagination. Difficult as it was to imagine Shawn and Carlton together, it was becoming much easier. Over the last year, Shawn had been scarce, and his attitude towards Lassiter had evolved. Gus hadn't been able to figure out why. At times, Shawn seemed to be friendly towards Carlton, and, other times that the four of them would hang out, he would withdraw, wouldn't talk to him much, as if afraid to say an offensive or unwanted thing. When in the world would that have ever worried Shawn? Gus hadn't noticed it, really paid good and decent attention to it, until the last couple of weeks. It started to make more sense. Shawn wouldn't hang out with his friends if Lassiter was around, like he'd been avoiding him. Like someone was _making _Shawn avoid him. He'd brought this up to Juliet as they wandered through three different furniture stores over the length of the springtime afternoon. It all came down to one simple fact: they could not believe that Adrian Harris-Collins was _jealous _of Carlton Lassiter, but they could believe that it was possible. The mere idea made them snicker—but, more sobering, was that it was the only explanation they could come up with. The only other one was that Shawn had exchanged his feelings for Adrian for Carlton, and that—that wasn't possible. Shawn had been too devastated—and if Gus had to see him like that again, the way he'd been last weekend, he didn't know if he could handle it.

"If they are napping, I really hope that's all they're doing," he grumbled. The statement wobbled. He dipped it back in for more truth. "Actually, I do hope they're together doing something."

"There's my Holmes and Watson shipper!" Juliet hugged his arm and rubbed a cheek against his shoulder. They hadn't decided who was who, really, and couldn't decide if Carlton was more like Watson or more like Lestrade. Juliet dismissed it: Lestrade was too ambiguous of a character, anyway; too unfinished and too poorly defined, even in the canonical works of Doyle himself. It was easier to say Shawn was like Holmes and Carlton was like Watson. It was still square-pegs, round-holes, but the allusion was what fit. Allusions could always fit if twisted and knotted.

She leaned away when he brought out his phone again. Gus put out another call to an unexpected half-friend of theirs.

When Gus parked in the driveway of the Spencer house, he anticipated a walk up to the front door to announce himself, but Henry was already in the garage, cleaning. A big, black-bristled broom was in his hands, and piles of dirt and dust showed the work he'd put forth.

"Perfect day for this," Henry insisted, making one big pile of pale brown-gray dust from two smaller ones. "Not too hot. Not too chilly. A man can do a lot of labor on a day like this. What are you up to, Gus? Is Shawn with you?"

"No," Gus said, biting back the urge to cry again. He'd been doing that a lot lately, and ninety-percent of it was done around Shawn. He felt like he was letting Shawn down, and not sure how to fix it. He wished he'd known more about Adrian, that Shawn had practically been living in Ventura the last year, and all the other sundry capers and nonsense Shawn hadn't bothered to tell him. How was that _his _fault, then? Shawn had been happy. Shawn had been the one who'd kept a secret. And Gus wondered if it was Shawn's silent, unformed attempt at revenge. It'd take Gus and Juliet weeks to tell anyone they were dating. So many weeks, in fact, that months could've been used in place of weeks, and would not have been incorrect. He just refused to _say _months. Weeks sounded less damaging, and wasn't a lie if looked at the right way. "Uh—have you seen Shawn lately?"

"Yeah, couple hours ago," Henry answered promptly. "Left him at the station. You know they found out who the dead guy was in holding, right?"

"Yeah," Gus said, getting a chill across his shoulders, folding his arms across his chest. "Juliet heard from Lassiter earlier today." And they couldn't get a hold of Carlton now, either. He didn't want to bring it up. Henry seemed too preoccupied. He didn't even know if he could bring himself to ask how Shawn was when Henry left him a bit ago. "You think Shawn will be around later?"

"Nah, not likely. I left him in decent hands. He's with Lassiter," Henry averred, remembering his earlier wish that Shawn's next significant other be Girl Lassiter, or, hell, at that point— "I'm not worried about him. Did you look for him at the station?"

"Uh, no. I wasn't actually looking for him." If Shawn and Lassiter had been at the station together, perhaps they were just busy. Or busy napping in the video conference room, for all Gus knew.

"Hey, Gus—" Henry began, bobbing in and out of certainty.

Gus had known Henry Spencer most of his life, and there were times, as adults, that they talked about Shawn though Shawn wasn't around. Even when they'd met, usually on accident or his parents would invite Henry around for a barbecue, before Shawn moved back, that they would talk about Shawn though Shawn wasn't around. "Yeah—what is it?"

"I was wondering—" Henry set the broom to a standstill against the side of the garage. He rubbed his hands clean of invisible grit, coming to stand closer to Gus. It invited intimacy and helped relinquish a modicum of Henry's discomfort. "Look, this stuff with Adrian—"

"What about it?" Gus went stiff through the shoulders, reflected even in his voice. "I don't know much, so don't—"

Henry looked him right in the eye. "Does Shawn need a lawyer?"

This was not what Gus had expected. His head tilted with intrigue, trying to fit it together. "A lawyer?" And then he remembered the things, very pointy, poniard-shaped things, about Shawn's and Adrian's relationship that even Gus and Juliet wouldn't discuss. If Henry knew, then— "I don't think that's a half-bad idea, actually. Just in case. Again, I don't really know anything, but just in case seems like—like, well, _just in case_."

"Right," Henry said, "just in case." He grabbed the broom and started putting gray gritty piles into an oversized dustpan. The burden had evaporated. "I know one. I'll call her tomorrow. I'll ask for Shawn's forgiveness later for butting in."

"Wise idea. It's usually easier to ask for Shawn's forgiveness than to ask for his permission. I've noticed that, too. Especially when it comes to stuff that he doesn't really want to talk about."

The thing was—the thing was— "I met him a couple of times."

Gus listened, nodding. They had all met Adrian a couple of times.

"He seemed all right," Henry said. "I thought he was a little pretentious and shallow, but he went to Stanford and always had money."

"Yes, he does come from a good family. But, if I can just say something here, Henry—?"

"Yeah?"

"You were a cop. You know that sometimes that crimes are not always committed among the classes of people and geographical areas that they suppose. Some of the most painful and harmful and terrible crimes are committed by the upper classes, hiding away in their big mansions, sailing on their fine boats, swimming in their money."

Henry took a moment to consider this. It was true. Santa Barbara had a long history of the wicked rich, from the Hayworths to the Castellanes. There was speculation that the Golden State Killer _and _the Zodiac Killer had both taken victims from Santa Barbara County. Not to mention that Elizabeth Short used to eat at the long-gone Snappy Lunch Diner before she was murdered and became known as the Black Dahlia.

Henry was provoked into speaking more of what was in his heart, but sounded far more flippant than intended. "I just hope that, next good friend he makes that sucks up his life and causes all this drama, it's someone that I know and can see often. And the next time he starts disappearing for long periods of time, I'm going to be all over him like flies on horse shit. I don't care how mad Shawn gets at me or how much he tells me to get out of his life. I am _not _letting this happen again."

"None of us should," Gus said, reaching his breaking point. The heavy stone of sorrow returned to his throat. If he hadn't been so self-involved, maybe he would've noticed. But if Shawn hadn't been so secretive and arrogant—they might've known sooner. "Maybe Shawn hid away with Adrian because he knew we'd find out, that we'd see through his façades. And we would judge him too harshly—Shawn, I mean. That we would judge him too much."

"Maybe," Henry said, finding this insight startlingly accurate. It hit him hard. "Maybe it was just one of his rebellions. He knew you and Juliet were getting closer to each other, which is all well and fine, Gus, and— I'm not blaming you. Hell," he said angrily, "it wasn't anyone's fault, really. But I hope this is one of his final rebellions, because I don't think I can stand watching him go through another one." He finished cleaning up the dust from the garage, stood with his hands at his waist and watching Gus, alternatively not watching Gus. "I'm sorry, Gus—we went on a tangent about Shawn."

"Seems appropriate, given the circumstances."

"What'd you really come here for? You said you weren't looking for Shawn."

"I wanted to ask if I could borrow your truck." He explained to Henry's awaiting face about the trip to furniture stores, their purchase of a new dining room table that would be delivered Tuesday, and his interest in taking the old one to Lassiter's place. "We talked about giving it to him, thought I'd just go ahead and do that now."

"Do you need some help?"

Gus was well-built, had a gym membership that he tried to use three mornings a week, but sometimes only did two, sometimes as many as five. It was the awkwardness of the table that bothered him, not its weight. "Yeah, that'd be nice. The back door at Lassiter's house is a little on the thin side. Or, at least, I always thought it was."

Henry admitted that he hadn't given it much thought, but would pay attention to it when they dropped the table off. "We can get in through the mudroom door, then one of us can open the patio door. The table should fit through it." He grabbed the keys, put his light gray hoodie back on, closed the garage door, and backed the truck out of the driveway. He waited for Gus to pull his car ahead, and soon they were off for the ten-minute drive to the condo.

Henry was glad he'd offered his services. It wasn't his muscles he needed, but his history of moving lots of furniture in and out of tight places. He started telling stories, from his and Maddie's first cramped apartment to the woes of homeownership when they bought the house Henry still lived in. It'd belonged to a relative who'd passed away, and taking care of the property had not been high on his list of priorities the last ten years of his life. "It wouldn't be high on anyone's priorities," Henry said, grunting as he twisted the bottom of the table to get it through the door. "But there were a few issues. Wasps. Damn, the wasps. Up until Shawn was, I don't know, eight, maybe, we would still find wasps upstairs from time to time."

He panted with Gus as they set the table down at the truck. Once it was secured in the bed, the three of them hopped into the cabin and took off for the house on Sunberry Lane.

**-x-**

Carlton hoped he would beat Shawn home. While he drove and thought and worried and thought some more during the drive, a drive that had never seemed so long, it was only logical that Shawn would've taken the bus back to the house. How else would he get there? So, if that were true, and his logic won out, pulled the correct scenario from the few possibilities that existed, then he would be there ahead of Shawn. He would be there ahead of Shawn. He had to be the first one there. He didn't know what fallout he was expecting, but he just knew, instinct upon instinct, that something was going to happen. Jasper hadn't made his final phone call to Adrian for no apparent reason. According to Vick, who'd called Lassiter to tell him, Adrian had been contacted a lot of times over the last two weeks. Some calls lasted a few seconds. Some lasted much longer.

And why—why?

He couldn't figure that out. Adrian had known something? Maybe, but what? Jasper had wanted to confess it to someone, perhaps sensing that he was nearing the end of his life? Maybe, but confess what? Jasper had been trying to reach out to one member of his family—the social and gregarious one, the one that everyone loved, that was loved by so many—without knowing, without being aware, that Adrian had a dark side, one that he had tried to drown in drink, one that he had tried to brighten with whisky and wine. Adrian would've been no help to a dying, repentant Jasper Collins.

If there'd been a clue left behind by Adrian that Shawn had now sopped up, Shawn would connect it—Shawn could perform that kind of magic. He'd _know. _And Lassiter didn't know what he'd do if Shawn found out first.

Lassiter thought about the house, thought of how Adrian had wanted it then didn't want it, or, apparently, Shawn, once he found out that Lassiter wanted the house, too. Even if Adrian thought that Lassiter had also wanted Shawn. Nothing would've convinced him otherwise. And this certainly wouldn't help. Shawn and Adrian wouldn't get back together. But the thought burned, and brought more weight to the gas pedal, more speed through the last major intersection.

The neighborhood was oddly quiet for a nice Sunday afternoon. It looked like a weekday. Houses doused in curtains and closed doors. A few people were out, tending their lawns, plucking at dead leaves and dead grasses, planting new life in bright colors and vivid greens. He didn't know why he thought it then, but he knew that if he was going to live in that neighborhood, he was going to put forth an effort to get to know some of the people surrounding him. And, someday, if Shawn ever spoke to him again, he wanted Shawn around more. He would've never had that house if it hadn't been for him. The last thing he wanted to do was get there and find Shawn's body lying in the living room.

He turned a corner, tires peeling. One neighbor looked up from her flowerbed, on her knees, staring at him. He had the gumball out, flashing, so he looked fierce and legitimate. It might take a while for his neighbors to like him—and he didn't care, as long as Shawn was all right. For someone so smart and so damn sure of himself, Shawn made a lot of stupid mistakes. Why would he even get involved with someone like Adrian? What had been the draw? Was it an instinctual need to defend himself because everything had gotten too easy? Was it a need to create chaos? Or did he just like being smacked around once in a while, and never knowing, loving the anticipation of waiting for that next chaotic moment to appear?

Lassiter quit thinking about it. His breath stopped in his chest. He was aware of his stupid, gallant heart and what kind of diamond it was hammering free. The closer he came to his house, the closer he came to wanting to pass out. He'd been through lots of frightening, life-threatening instances while a cop, even instances before he finished college, and nothing was as bad as this. The 5% terror joked about. All because of Shawn. Because if something happened to Shawn, how could he face anyone again?

He could see the top of the roof—the edge of the carport—and the driveway. An old sedan was parked crookedly there. As he got closer, he realized whose car it was. It was Will Lissner's old red Audi.

And everything stopped spinning one way, and starting exploding. The scintillations were massive, almost blinded him as he pulled the car into the drive, blocked in the red Audi. He braked, threw it in Park, turned it off, threw the keys into the bushes so no one could steal his vehicle if something happened to him. At the back door, he listened for voices, heard nothing. His fingers hovered over the aluminum alloy of his service piece, but it stayed holstered as he entered the backyard. No one was there, and he knew they were inside. Doubtlessly, three of them. Because he believed Shawn to be in immediate danger, even if Shawn didn't know that, Lassiter ripped the screen door open and kicked the back door in. Regardless of the alarm system, or because of it, he knew the door was weak. It flung in, splintering at the handle, whipping dust and debris.

There was always that split second when he wondered if he'd be shot. If he did, at least he'd be at home.

"SBPD! Don't move! Nobody move!"

It was easy to spot three silhouettes in the living room, against the window and the strange, glared light. Six hands shot into the air. Only one weapon.

"Drop the gun!" Lassiter didn't hesitate to point it at someone—Will, he thought, but he wasn't sure—and whoever it was did not have to be asked twice. "Nobody move!"

Nobody moved, not even Shawn. Motes of dust shifted lazily in the sunbeams cut through the front window. Someone breathed loudly, but Lassiter realized that was just him. Nobody spoke.

He had one set of handcuffs, and that was all. At least he didn't have to handcuff Shawn, and Adrian, if it was Adrian, wasn't thinking of anything more than how in the hell this had happened. Shawn looked like he'd been hit in the cheek. It was red and his hand hovered over part of it. Lassiter realized it wasn't just red from the rush of blood to the surface, but from a streak of broken flesh. He handcuffed the person who'd had the gun—it was Will. Odd. And no doubt there was a story behind this, which he'd really like to hear in a second or two.

Just as he got Will handcuffed, more shouts came from the back door, from the front door that was barreled in. The whole house seemed to quake and quiver as feet pounded its floors and shouting bounced off the walls. Vick was at the head of the team, but she saw that the situation had been reined by Lassiter.

"Handcuff the other one until we know what's going on," Vick commanded of Ballas. For once, he listened without a smart-aleck quip.

Shawn had the great pleasure of watching handcuffs being slapped on Adrian. It felt shallow and far too human to enjoy it so much. But his cheek hurt with the explosion of stings and pain, and his eyes were having trouble staying focused on the images that mattered: Adrian in handcuffs, and Lassiter there, as if he'd been trying to save him. Shawn hadn't thought he was in any real danger, though his stupidity was hurting his pride, and that would hurt him a lot longer than the injury to his face. He saw uniformed officers take away Will and Adrian for questioning back at the station. Good—he wouldn't have to look at them again for the rest of his life. He hoped so, anyway, aside from the memories that would scrape across his conscious at inconvenient moments. He sat down on the couch, waiting for the house to fall into silence.

Over him stood Chief Vick. She leaned forward to touch him at the shoulder. "Are you all right? Do you want an ambulance?"

Shawn declined needing one. Vick organized the remaining uniforms, leaving Shawn on his own for a moment. Lassiter sat down next to him. They didn't say anything for several seconds.

"Lassie?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you open the drawer in that end table thingy right there?" He used a wilted forefinger to indicate which one, the one between the couch and the wall. Carlton used it to store a candle-lighter, matches, a flashlight, and, as he saw when he opened it, a cartridge for his sidearm. That sounded like him, but the sight of it there reminded him how violent he'd allowed his life to get. Next to the extra bullets, a box of bandages with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them. He grabbed one, pulled a clean tissue out of the box, but held Shawn by a wrist.

Shawn let himself be led into the kitchen. He pressed the tissue against his cheek, hoping to stanch the blood. It felt like Adrian's blood, not even his own. It felt like someone else's injury. "How did you know?"

"I'm psychic," Lassiter remarked, wondering how many times in the future shit like this would happen and he'd use that exact excuse to come to Shawn's rescue. "Next time, try to save me, okay? I can't wash your wound, Spencer, if you don't drop your goddam hand. You're not invisible."

That sounded like Lassie, a cross between Peter Pan and Mary Poppins. And maybe a little—just a little—Captain Hook. Shawn dropped his hand, watched the blood unmoving on the tissue. "How did you really know?"

"Tyas found the last phone call Jasper made on his cell."

"It was to Adrian?"

"It was to Andre, Adrian's father. Most of his phone calls were to Adrian over the last couple of weeks. I knew there was something—something that we couldn't figure out. Now—how did you know?"

"I'm psychic, remember? Ow!"

"Sorry," he said instinctively when Shawn winced. "I think we might have to sacrifice one of Andromeda's leaves."

Andromeda was their aloe plant. Well, Lassiter's aloe plant. She felt like theirs. A lot of the things there started to feel like theirs. Lassiter broke off a leaf and used his thin-sickle moon of a thumbnail to pierce it, open it up, like a grotesque sacrifice. The area around the scrape had been burning, now soothed by the aloe. Shawn could feel Lassiter's breath, cool and palliating.

"Something Will said," Shawn started to say, talking like a real detective who'd pieced together clues, who didn't use histrionics to announce those clues, "something he said last night."

"What did he say that was so revelatory?"

Shawn looked him in the eye, fingers still hovering lightly over the injury, the Teenage Mutant Ninja bandage with its bright green splotches of turtle-power against a white background. He tried to smile a little, to show his appreciation for the irony. "That he was happy. That getting rid of Adrian was the best thing that happened to him."

Why would that be a lie? Lassiter wanted to know. He drew a thumb along Shawn's shoulder, then a fingertip, then wondered what he was doing. He thought Shawn was going to hug him, or at least throw his arm around him in moment's abandonment, but Shawn didn't—and he couldn't—

"Shawn!"

Shawn moved his eyes from the knot of Lassiter's shirt to the form of his father running across the dining room, running to him. He was elated to see his dad—and flanking him were Gus and Juliet. His dad squeezed him briefly, moved him out to examine him. Shawn got his earlobes rubbed, but one thumb inched closer to the injury on his cheek.

"Is this all you got?" Henry asked, doubtful.

"All I got, yeah. Promise. Lassie fixed it up for me. Stings, though. Not going to lie to you, Pop. Hurts really bad. And everything looks a little hazy. Is that normal when you have a broken heart? Oh. Yeah. We had to sacrifice Andromeda, too."

"Wha—?" Henry looked at Lassiter. "What's he talking about?"

"Andromeda's a plant, an aloe plant." He pointed to the leaf used to help Shawn, resting on the counter. Still, he tried to glimpse something else going on in Shawn's head. Their almost-intimate moment was enough to make him think Shawn was a little unwell. "You might want to take him to the emergency room to have him looked at. I think he might've gotten his noggin knocked pretty good." He didn't know, after all, how Shawn had sustained the injury. He could've gotten hit with a fist, an open hand, or struck with a weapon, like a gun. At least, Lassiter suspected that Will had done the hitting and, for once, Adrian had kept his hands off Shawn.

"Yeah, all right," Henry agreed. "Shawn, would it be okay if we took you to the hospital now?"

"I want to stay home and watch cartoons," Shawn said.

"He might be in shock," Juliet offered.

Henry took off his hoodie and wrapped it around Shawn, who was only in his t-shirt. "Come on," he urged Shawn along with an arm over his shoulders.

Lassiter watched them, pushing aside a sense of longing for a sense of logic. "Wait, what are the three of you doing here, anyway? I didn't call you. Did Shawn call you?"

"I didn't," Shawn said, throwing his father's arm off of him again. "Can we stay a sec? Please? I want to know what they're doing here. Why are you here?"

"We've been trying to reach you for hours," Gus said.

"You, too," Juliet threw in to Carlton. "Don't you guys _ever _have your phones on?"

Lassiter poked around the living room for Shawn's phone, explaining what he could of what'd happened. That didn't really explain why Henry, O'Hara _and _Gus had shown up. He found Shawn's phone under the couch, and, along with it, pulled out a white cotton sock that was clearly Shawn's. Figured—but it stirred something in Lassiter until he ignored it. On Shawn's phone, he found six calls from Gus, three from O'Hara, one from Henry. None from Adrian, none from Will. The outgoing calls, though, told a different story.

"Shawn called Will just forty minutes ago," he said to the two of them. "I wonder what happened?"

It would be a while before he, and the rest of them, found out. Shawn, standing there in the dining room, wasn't talking yet. It occurred to him that he could start telling, but he really didn't feel well enough. In the meantime, seeing Shawn's muteness except when it came to delaying his departure with his dad, Juliet tried to bring levity to the moment, now that they so desperately needed it.

"Gus and I brought you something," she said with almost false cheeriness. "Two somethings, actually."

His glance to the two of them was distrustful. "What did you bring me?" Their charitable souls had brought him, uh, let's say, _interesting _things over the last month. "Is it a new Kiss the Cook mug? I broke mine."

"Well, uh—that's uncanny, really," Juliet said, a little spooked by Lassiter's insight. She brought from her oversized handbag a box.

Lassiter took the box. It was white with a blue top, and the sides showed the image of what was inside. Mugs. Mugs with Tigger from Winnie the Pooh on them, in Tigger-like poses. He assumed there was some allegory there, but with all that'd happened, he couldn't dig for it. "Thanks."

"And we brought you something else," she said, pleased that her Tigger mugs were a big hit.

"What?" Lassiter said, glancing at Shawn as he looked at the mugs. Shawn started opening the box, but Henry put a stop to it. ("Let's just leave those alone until we know you're feeling better, okay?" "Sure thing, Pop.")

"It's a dining room table," Gus proclaimed. "Ours, in fact."

"Oh," Lassiter said, putting Shawn's phone in his pocket, and, likewise, without thinking about it, the sock he'd unearthed from the tomb beneath the couch. "The small bistro one? That one?"

Lassiter was pleased to have it. At least he'd have somewhere to put his keys when he came in the door at night. He said this out loud to them when the table was where he wanted it. "And," Juliet added, eyes popped open wide as her fingertips spread against its clear glass top, "you can _even eat here. _I know! It's crazy! But you can!"

His face was deadpan, betraying nothing. He could see nothing of his future, of meals he would eat there with the loves of his life, with notebooks written in foreign languages, and schoolbooks and a backpack there, and Shawn's shoes a ubiquitous but lovely annoyance underneath. Eat there? That seemed so simple. What an idea! "I'll keep that in mind."

Shawn kept turning the box with the Tigger mugs in his eager hands. He stopped abruptly. "I think I—" He thought he felt something tug at his insides, a kind of reflex. He dashed off to the bathroom, and all of them heard him throw up.

"He does that a lot when he's here," Lassiter said, almost apologetically. "Excuse me." He went through his usual routine of giving Shawn a wet washcloth, but it was Henry who came in to help Shawn. "You'd better take him to the hospital, Henry."

"I've been trying. He keeps telling me no." Henry cuddled Shawn gently, squeezed Shawn's shoulder. He really did look pathetic and unwell. "Want to go to the hospital?"

"Sure," Shawn said. He patted the front of Lassiter's shirt with limp fingertips. "I'll explain things to you later. Thanks for saving me."

"You would've saved yourself. You always do."

With a sense of sadness, he watched them go out the back door. Gus and Juliet were talking to each other, assuring themselves that Shawn would be all right, that he'd bounce back, "like Tigger." Carlton wasn't as sure.

"He'll be okay," Juliet said. "I'm sure he'll be out of the hospital in no time."

It'd probably be hours, surely, Carlton judged. He thanked her for the sentiment anyway. "And thanks for the table. And the mugs."

"No problem!" Juliet said.

Gus said, "I'm sure Shawn will tell you the whole story soon. Don't worry."

Not worry—him? Yes, he could do that. Just as Gus and Juliet left, Vick came back in. Lassiter was surprised she was still there. She'd been outside, he learned, taking statements from the neighbors. They hadn't seen much, and asked too many questions.

"Excellent way to impress your new neighbors, Carlton," she added. She gave him a thumbs-up, which caused him to roll his eyes.

"Maybe I should move out now and save myself all the aggravation," he grumbled, knowing full well he would not do that. The house meant too much to him. Even now. Maybe more now. He had a feeling the neighborhood kids might egg his house or throw toilet paper around the yard, but it was too late: he was attached, he was in, and the house was his.

"This looks nice," Vick said of the new table. "Where'd this come from?"

In a single sentence, heart not in it, Carlton explained. The chief was also aware of Juliet's and Gus's donations to Lassiter's domestic life, in more ways than dishes and a table.

"We should get back to the station," Vick said to her head detective. "You have a lot of explaining to do, and I'm sure the two gentlemen we apprehended would also like their chance to explain. Shawn went to the hospital with Henry?"

Lassiter nodded, padding his side for his gun. It was there. He had put it away. Must've been an automatic movement amid the commotion. He found something else in the pocket of his suit coat, lifted it out, remembered it was Shawn's phone, let it drop into oblivion again. He pulled the sock from the other one, and, without thinking, and glad that everyone else had gone, Lassiter gave it a careful toss. It landed with deftness, as if it had meant to do it all along, right over the gentle, wide slope of the beige armchair. It looked like it belonged.


	26. Am I Not a Wonder

**XXVI. Am I Not A Wonder**

Lassiter did not get home until 9:45 that night. He was glad that the house was quiet, that a light had been turned on somewhere so that he wasn't walking into a black hole. Henry had fixed the doors, Lassiter had phoned him earlier that day when he wanted to know how Shawn was doing, before Shawn showed up at the station, then disappeared again before Lassiter could talk to him. The door still stuck a little bit when Lassiter pushed it in, but that was a nice touch. It felt like home, having the back door stick. He closed the door behind him, unsure how he'd feel being there after what'd happened. He saw the table, dropped his keys on it just as he'd imagined doing that afternoon. They clanked against the glass.

"You need a dish," a voice said from the living room.

On the couch, beneath the soft glow of the lamp, Shawn was lying on his side. A book was in his hands. Lassiter tried not to be elated to see him. It was nice that Shawn had chosen to come there, rather to his dad's, to the laundromat. He'd chosen that spot to stay comfortable through a night, after a day of riotous discomfort.

"A dish," Shawn repeated, not moving much. He was beginning to get stiff. His neck was sore, and his head ached. "To drop your keys in and put in lose change and all that stuff."

And he was still babbling. The doctor said that was okay. Shawn had been trying to do some grounding exercises to keep himself from floating far, far away. Sometimes, far, far away sounded really damn nice. He'd settled for a trip to the bookstore with his dad, where he picked up Mary Poppins, the first two books, and _Peter Pan_. He was reading _Mary Poppins_. She _did _sort of remind him of Lassie, in a way. She was tough—much tougher than Julie Andrews, but Shawn just pictured Julie Andrews in his head and that softened the Mary Poppins from the book. She was tough, yes, and when anything at all unusual or magical occurred, and Jane and Michael knew it, and tried to call Mary Poppins on it, she would pretend it never happened. She would act like it hadn't happened. She would admonish the children for saying that it did.

Somehow, that sounded a lot like Lassie. Shawn is magical? Hogwash! Spit-spot, into bed!

Carlton decided to give a small smile. "A dish. I'll look for one. What's that smell?"

"Dad brought over some of his chicken and noodles."

"He didn't!" Lassiter launched himself into the kitchen. The light over the stove was on, highlighting the edges of a big cooking pot with the lid on, keeping warm over low heat. Lid removed, steam piled high, and scents with it. Carlton's stomach kicked itself to life. A bowl and spoon had been left out on the counter for him to use. Shawn had already eaten some, told by the spoon and bowl in the sink.

Shawn was in the kitchen with him. "Do you want some bread? It's Italian loaf. Dad brought it over, too." The tip of his finger removed the foil that covered it on the cutting block. Nearby, a serrated knife that Shawn used to slice it. Crumbs flicked around, on the counter, on the back of Shawn's hands. "Warmed, yes, with butter, more yes?"

"Most yes, thanks."

Shawn sliced generous helpings of bread, warmed them in the microwave for a burst of seconds, then smeared them with butter from the nearby dish. He kept one for himself, gave two to Lassie. "How did it go? At work. At the station. Did anything happen? Are they out on bond? Did you arrest them?"

"We arrested Will. We let Adrian go," Lassiter swallowed his first bite of Henry Spencer's delicious chicken noodles, "at least for time-being. He knows he'll be looked into now."

"For?"

"You already know."

"I want to hear someone who's in an official SBPD capacity say it." And he just wanted to hear Lassie say it. That would mean a lot more.

"Accepting some of the money his cousins embezzled from Collins Bank. There, happy?" Lassiter tried to snap at it with a fitful rage, but it dissipated quickly at the look of despair on Shawn's face. It puzzled him. "You know he accepted that money."

"It was the porcelain chips."

"The what?"

"The porcelain chips found on the body—on Jasper's body."

"I don't get it."

"Adrian and Jasper met in person recently. I'm sure if you get a search warrant for Adrian's office—"

"Oh, we most certainly will," and Carlton was going to grab a front-row seat.

"You'll notice that there's a fountain missing."

Lassiter paid very close attention now.

"I guess he must've had his cousin take care of it. There were fountains all over the firm's office. Adrian had a nice one in his, over in the corner. It was resin and porcelain, a crashing wave and dolphins coming out of the wave. It was pretty. Something must've happened. Maybe they argued. It must've broken."

Carlton had a moment's pity for Jasper Collins. "He must've been too unwell to work."

"Yeah, that's how he got the burns on the bottom of his feet. He must've spilled something at work. Or at home. Which might've just been work."

"We did find evidence of a spill at Jasper's store, as well as a cot and other items to suggest he was living there. I think he wasn't well. Hadn't been well for a while. Would Adrian have—have been mean to him if he broke the fountain?"

"Very likely. Adrian was possessive. He liked his things being his things. Jasper probably went there to tell Adrian that the money his uncles had given him had been stolen from the bank. Either he wanted Adrian to do the right thing—or he wanted to blackmail him. If I were Adrian," Shawn's eyes, looking more gray right then, flashed with a kind of brilliancy, a genius that Lassiter couldn't imitate, "I think I know which story I'd try to tell the police."

"Don't worry," Lassiter said, picking at a slice of bread rather than looking at Shawn and feeling his ribs go soft with emotion, "we will find the truth."

"All the Collinses have vices," Shawn went on. "Brooke likes food. She eats more when she's stressed. When I saw her the other day to talk about my beautiful launderette, she had a tiny crumb on her boob-shelf," he indicated the area with his palms, "and a little smear of chocolate on the inside corner of her mouth. I knew she'd been eating more often."

"Jasper called her a couple of times, too."

"Probably trying to get her to talk to Adrian."

"That's what we're considering. And Adrian drank."

"Like an ugly deep-sea fish. I didn't notice it until—" Shawn paused, considering, squashing down feelings of self-resentment because he hadn't noticed until it was too late, "until I was too far in to climb out again. And Jasper drank. Adrian's mom takes a lot of pills _and _drinks. I don't know about Andre. He probably has mistresses or—what do you call male mistresses?"

Lassiter stopped chewing, staring at Shawn. "What?" he cried with his mouth full of bread.

"Relax, Lass, I'm kidding."

Lassiter didn't know about Andre Collins, either. They would look into it. They would look into a lot of things. "Do you think Adrian knew where that money had come from?"

"It's possible. He was an egomaniacal upperclassman at Stanford Law when his cousins finished pulling that heist. I don't think he knew what they were doing. But he didn't exactly have a free ride at Stanford, and any money they wanted to give him would've been welcomed. Do you think he knew? You do," Shawn could read it in his gaze, "you do think he knew."

"Not the whole time, not explicitly," Lassiter commented, "but I think he knew something was going on, that they were planning something. He worked there, didn't he? He was in that family. And that is one hell of a tight-knit family. You want to stand there and tell me he didn't know what was going on?"

Shawn hedged the question. "What about Brooke? Do you think she knew?"

They hadn't decided that yet. It edged Lassiter's doubts. But Adrian— "I don't know." It took a lot out of him to admit such a thing. He pawed his way around Shawn, who seemed to be everywhere and so close to him all of the sudden, and took a seat, where else, at the table. Shawn claimed the other seat. There were only two. Lassiter had pieces he couldn't fill in, not the way Shawn had filled in certain broken parts and certain empty spaces of the case, of his life, of his house—

"Why did Jasper go to Englers?" he asked, knowing that Shawn knew the answer.

"Jasper worked there when he was a boy," Shawn said. "I found it in an article I read. His mom and dad were divorced, and he lived up here with his mom while the rest of the Collins family were still in Ventura. He worked at Englers. It was something my dad said a while ago—just a few days ago, I guess. People go where they are most comfortable when something is going on with them. When people have a lot of anxiety—or injuries," he swabbed a hand around the left side of his face, now bandaged with something more plain and practical and the Turtles were gone, "they go where they are most at home, where they feel the most like themselves."

"And Jasper went to Englers. Do you think he knew he was dying?"

"Probably. Don't they say that people usually know those sorts of things?"

"I hope I don't know," confessed Lassiter. Shawn got up and went into the kitchen, came out two minutes later with a mug of tea for him, for himself, and then went back to the kitchen again. Lassiter could hear him filling up a bowl with more chicken noodles. It wasn't really like a soup, more like—a stew? A casserole? It was really hard to define it, except to say that it was delicious. It took all day to cook, to get the chicken so that it would shred in the broth sauce and stick to the noodles. It was spiced just right with salt, pepper, sage, onions, and probably some garlic.

They ate in silence for several minutes.

"What do you think," Lassiter began, "Adrian will say about possibly being blackmailed by Jasper?"

"I don't know. Jasper thought Adrian knew what was going on, thought that Adrian had some of the money. Adrian always did seem to have a lot of money. When he wanted to buy a house, maybe he thought it was a way to finally get rid of it. Maybe clear his conscience. I don't know, can't make suppositions about a guy I thought I knew really well—and I didn't know him well at all." Shawn abruptly snickered, his eyes lost in the recent past, close enough to still pain him, far away enough to bring out the irony. "You know what I said to him when he walked in? You know, it was genuinely funny, because they came through the front door, and no one who knows us would ever come through the front door."

"Our friends—and relatives—use the back door. They came to the front. How fitting. What'd you say to him? Did you tell him I wanted to use his mansack for target practice?"

"No," Shawn said, lifting his gaze just long enough to release a flicker of humor, and fall away again. "I told him that he could've never made this place much of a home—he never would've liked it as much as I did—or you do. I should've mentioned that you'd like to do something with his precious mansack. Will might not have hit me in the face. So. Lass. What about Will?"

"Singing like a canary downtown," Lassiter said. He remembered who he was saying it to. "I'm sorry—sorry that they—"

"It's all right." He dug his spoon around in the noodles. He found a big piece of chicken and started breaking it apart. "We all make mistakes. It wasn't until I started thinking about it, really thinking about it, that it seemed unlikely that Will _would've _split up with Adrian completely. Even if he did really hit him. I think he did. I think that was part of the draw, too. I think they're two sick, very messed up—"

"Shawn," Lassiter called out to him, set his hand over Shawn's fingertips to bring him back, "don't. They're not worth it." He had to say the thought that torpedoed across his mind. "And, whatever happened, Adrian did love you. I think the pressure from Jasper must've gotten to him, and he took it out on you."

Shawn had reached that conclusion hours ago. It was too nice of Lassie to say so, and Shawn didn't let on that he'd already had the same thought. "Yeah, that makes sense. That doesn't make it right. And that didn't make those things he said, the accusations he made, any more true. And if he'd been seeing Will the whole time—I don't know—don't think I can trust anyone again." It sounded horribly cliché, and Shawn instantly regretted letting the mundane phrase out of his mouth.

"What did he say?" Lassiter thought it might be a distraction, soon finding that he was right but for the wrong reasons.

"He said the work that I do was cheap, made me look cheap. He said that I wasn't really helping people, and if I believed I was psychic, then I was no better than the charlatans and murderers that I helped put away. And he said—what else did he say?—that he knew all along that I was a beggar, that I'd never amount to much, because he'd seen all these red flags. I told him, well, if he had all these red flags and had been collecting them for as long as we'd been together, then why was he any better than me? I mean, no one who cared about you would do that. No one would admit it, only if he wanted to hurt you. He got _really mad _at that point, because I'd called him on it. He didn't like that. And he said I was lousy in bed, which, of course, we _know _isn't true. Well, _I_ know it isn't true, Pooch, even if you don't."

"You are better than them," Carlton said instead of commenting about the lover thing. That seemed like hot coals. It was easier to assuage Shawn's talents. "I've seen you do things that are—"

"Astounding? Virtually impossible? Uh—like the magical work of intervening dragons, unicorns and angels?"

"Sure," Lassiter answered easily, and it brought a smile to Shawn's face. A real one, anyway, that lit up his eyes and made the life between them spark. "You work like your spiritual counterpart; you work like Pandora. You bring chaos in a box—"

"Jar," Shawn automatically corrected, then waved the correction aside. "Never mind. Go on. I bring chaos in a box—and then I close it up again?"

"You do. That is what you do," he said in a soft, barely-there voice. And all around him, the quiet continued. Shawn had closed the box.

"Well, Lassie, don't you know by now that everyone has a box of chaos? They take it out once in a while, and can't help but peek inside."

"That feels true. I think mine's been closed for a while."

"But you know what's always inside, don't you?"

Carlton struggled to answer this riddle, and gave up. He expected a joke. "No, what?"

"Hope. They say that was all that was left in her jar after she'd opened it. Hope."

Lassiter got no punchline, after all. "So—to change the subject. When did you get here?"

"About an hour ago. We weren't at the hospital long. I have a concussion and a booboo on my cheek. I have paperwork somewhere that you're supposed to look at, as my designated caretaker."

"I'm flattered."

"It's mostly about food and upcoming appointments. We stopped at my dad's and got the soup—stew? I don't even—"

"Me either," Lassiter said, smirking. "Casserole?"

"Cassoulet?"

"We'll never be sure. What were you reading?"

"_Mary Poppins_."

"The book?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"You remind me of her."

"I remind you of Mary Poppins? Spencer—"

"No, really, in a good way! Hear me out, Lass, before you demean my interpretation!"

"I need more chicken and noodles for this, don't I?"

"Very likely. I won't stop you. Could you bring me a little more, too, Pooch?"

Carlton didn't even bother to ask him to stop with the Pooch thing already. Like the way Shawn grabbed the ends of his ties and the way he appeared out of nowhere, the way he acted like the two of them together was a natural progression of things, Lassiter decided there was no point in arguing. He could make Shawn go away, and all he had to say were two little sentences.

In the morning, Lassiter woke from the pressure of a nightmare. It was gone within seconds, leaving him haggard and listless. It was Monday, his mind told him spontaneously. Work day. And then it all rushed back, everything that'd happened yesterday. He kicked the covers off and hurried across the hall to check on Shawn. He wasn't there. The coverlet was gone from the bed, and Lassiter found it smothering Shawn on the couch instead.

Shawn was awake, upright, reading again with the television playing gentle music. The lamp burned against the incoming dawn, not quite coating the house in a silvery light. It was early, a little after six-thirty.

"Hi," Shawn said, dropping the book. He never used bookmarks, or very rarely did. He always remembered where he left off. "How did you sleep?"

"All right. Nightmares—just a few of them. You?"

"I think I'll be a little sleepy throughout the day. Do you mind if I stay here?"

"No," Carlton grumbled, "I'm your caretaker, remember? But pretty soon I'll be asking you for rent." He didn't have to. Shawn always did more than his fair share of chores. It was like having a free housekeeper. But it started to snap and twinge Carlton's conscience. It plagued him as he sipped his first cup of coffee, and watched Shawn from the kitchen door. He wasn't reading _Mary Poppins_. He was reading something else. "What happened to Mary and Jane and Michael?"

"And John and Barbara?"

"Who?"

"The twins. They're in the books but not the movie. I finished it last night. I'm reading _Peter Pan_. You're very Captain Hook-like. Or Peter-like. I can't tell. Maybe that's why they didn't like each other: they saw too much of themselves in each other. Peter saw in Hook what he would be like if he grew up. Hook saw in Peter what he was like when he had youth and a life ahead of him. Resentment all around. I got an email from Adelaide Barkle Smith last night. Do you remember her from the workshop we went to?"

"Yes." He drew in a breath and tried not to think of all that'd happened since then. "What about her? Did she ask you out?"

Shawn chortled, surprised by the comment. "No, not hardly. She wants me to make an appearance at the next talk she's giving. Talk about my experiences in the imaginal realm and how that helps me be a psychic detective."

Carlton was momentarily stunned. Shawn, give a lecture? In front of new-agers, in front of hippies? The idea was both ridiculous and appealing. "Sounds like a serious adventure. I suggest you do it. When is it?"

"A couple of weeks. I have some time to work on my thoughts, unscramble them, maybe put them down on paper." But why would he have to do that? He didn't usually take notes, certainly not copious ones. If he did, they were limited, and often in Swedish, so very few people could make anything of them. Most of the work he did, the cases he solved, the projects he worked on, were completed using only his head. Sometimes the continuity was a little off, here and there, but it was nothing that couldn't be seamed over. "Yeah, I already told her I'd do it."

"Good. I'm going to shower and get ready to go. I have a feeling it's going to be busy at work today." He didn't bother asking Shawn if he'd drop by later. He knew Shawn would. Staying away would be too difficult. He'd want to know what was going on. If, that is—if he ever talked to Lassiter again, or could stand being in the same room with him.

Carlton showered slowly, letting the eucalyptus body wash turn to soft lather, to bubbly suds, to an expensive perfume that went down the drain with the water and the dirt and all the emotions of yesterday. He took his time toweling off, despite getting cold in the elongated process. He went out of the steamy bathroom with a towel at his waist, pinched in place by his hand. Shawn was still on the couch, lost in the billows of blue and white, still with his nose in a book, and a Tigger coffee cup in his hand. He must've gotten up once to fill that mug. Lassiter took the image of Shawn on the couch into the bedroom with him, shut the door so that he could get dressed. He turned, saw a suit suspended on its hanger from the upper part of the closet door. Not the one he thought about wearing today, it was a dark gray and he felt like wearing navy or black. But, okay, dark gray it was. The shirt with it was dark blue, and the tie dark green, of the same color family, with flecks of the same blue and a soft textured stripe. As a joke, along with laying out his outfit for the day, Shawn had set a pair of underwear on the bed, too: green bikini zebra stripes.

Shawn looked up, put the book aside, when Lassie appeared from the hallway. He shone with handsomeness. The colors had been chosen for their effectiveness together, not for the way they worked with his complexion, which was paler than usual from lack of sleep and a higher-than-normal level of stress. Shawn put aside book, but not the cup of coffee, and untangled himself from the killer comforter. "Are you wearing them?"

"I suppose you mean the underwear you set out."

"That's what I mean, yes. Are you?"

"A gentleman doesn't talk about such things."

"Come on. I've had a rough couple of weeks. The least you could do is give me _that _image to get me through the day." Shawn paused, then gave a shake of his head as he pretended to fix Lassie's tie. "Never mind. After you leave, I'll simply rifle through your underwear drawer and find out if they're missing. If they're missing, then I'll know. Problem solved. And you think there's only one detective in this household—ha!"

"Shawn," Carlton started to say, and Shawn looked as though he was about the be reprimanded for the household comment, "there's something I want to tell you." It was time he said it. The guilt was getting to him. He couldn't stand it anymore. He could hardly stand to look Shawn in the eye. And he had such nice eyes, most of the time, when they weren't skirted or hooded or shielded by his lies. "Sit down."

"No," Shawn said, drawing on inner strength, "no, I think I'd better stand for this. But—to the kitchen, okay? I need more coffee." That way, if it was something really bad, and he felt like being dramatic, he could flick a cupful of coffee all over the front of Lassiter's suit. He doubted he'd feel such an inclination. Things were never that bad. Things were never, _ever _that bad. Then why was he shaking? Why did his legs feel like water? He dove for the obvious conclusion. "If you want me to leave, if I've overstayed—"

"Don't be an idiot," Lassiter snapped, the closest he could get, right then, to tell Shawn to shut up. "I like having you here. I like that you clean the toilet and iron my shirts and wash the dishes. I like that you dust while listening to jazz. I like that you sit on my couch and watch movies and read books and I never know when or if that magical bike of yours will be in the driveway."

"Nobody knows," Shawn inserted, "that's why it's magical."

"I am not an idiot, and I know I'd never even have this house if it wasn't for you. And against your better judgement, maybe, when you knew that if Adrian found out about it, you two would probably be in some kind of fight, you told me about this house because you knew I'd like it. That it's where I can see my future—such as it is. You already know your way around the alarm system, and how to get in here in the middle of the night so that you think I don't know it's you—"

"Stop," Shawn said, wishing to put an end to this. It was hurting him. "If you didn't want me to get by your alarm, you should not have made the code so very, very obvious."

It almost brought a blush to Carlton's cheeks, and he almost got super-hot in embarrassment. The humiliation was not from the ease of the code, but from the fact that of all the people whose birthdays he knew, Shawn's birthday was the code.

"Nevertheless, I like having you here," he concluded quickly. "After I tell you what I have to tell you, I doubt you'll want to be back here at all—or even speak to me—maybe ever—maybe you just need—"

"STOP!" Shawn shouted. "What is it? Please—for the love of all that is holy—for all the jittery, happy cuteness in my Tigger mug—just tell me!"

Carlton blanched, opening his mouth to make the proclamation, only closing it again to restart. He found a more suitable beginning. "I knew that you were seeing someone. I knew you were. Last year. When you weren't around so much. I wondered—I thought you might be in trouble—you were quiet and you were thin—not as thin as you are now, but—I worried, okay? I followed you a few times. Down to Ventura. I knew you were with him. I just didn't realize, for a while, who it was. I just knew it was someone. And I thought you were supposed to be happy, and there were times when I saw you that you didn't seem happy at all. And I worried more. I told O'Hara about following you. She worried. I don't know if she told Gus—I didn't—I don't know if you ever did—"

"Gus knew," Shawn mumbled, still shaking, rocked out of his usual world. His eyes darted upward, landed on Lassiter's. "And I knew."

Lassiter sucked in a deep breath. "You knew I was following you."

"That you had, yeah, a few times. I knew it was you. But I didn't know why."

Lassiter read into those statements as much as he could. Little things squirmed, little things fell into place. "You told Adrian. You told him I was following you, and that's why he—"

"He thought you were jealous, yes. And he was jealous of you because I wouldn't tell you to stop following me, and I wouldn't tell you more than what you could see from your car window." Shawn picked at Lassiter's tie, pulled it out of the suit coat, tucked it back in again. "And, honestly, man, you are not one splendid detective if you never, ever thought, for one single second, that I didn't know anything about the Collins Bank embezzlement case. Come on! It's, like, only the biggest thing to happen in Santa Barbara in the last dozen years! How could I not look into it?"

Carlton claimed a half-step retreat. "You were—were working a case? You dated Adrian—to work a case?"

"No, no, no," Shawn said rapidly, "that was an accident. I had studied the case, yes, but I met Adrian a few weeks later. It seemed—it seemed—"

"Like it was meant to be?"

"Yeah. That's why I didn't like any of it. I didn't like finding out that it was Collins who'd died in holding, whose body I just happened to find. Like it was—it was a warning or something. But it was Adrian who started to scare the shit out of me, but I was so blinded by my own conceit and—" Shawn grunted, groaned, turned around in a circle. He put his hands to his face.

"Are you okay?" When he thought that Shawn would storm out on him as soon as he made the declaration that he'd followed Shawn parts of last year, this sudden worry over what Shawn was going through was a change in his future he hadn't seen. There was always a lot in his future that he didn't see coming. "What is it?"

"When you brought Jasper in, did he say anything?"

"No, he was drunk as a skunk. Smelled like one, too." Carlton amended the statement, only when harrowed by what Dr. Strode had told him on the phone yesterday. "He was also sick. Acidosis. He wouldn't have known, probably, unless—" He and Shawn looked at each other, chills coming across his neck, and Shawn could feel it too. Carlton dismissed it with a grunt. "No—no, that isn't—there is no way in hell that Jasper Collins would've known _you'd _be the one to find him in holding—dead!" He doubted his own statement. "Was there? He'd just talked to Adrian, and maybe—"

"Adrian told him that we were having problems. I heard him on the phone the other day—a couple of weeks ago. I was eavesdropping," Shawn said, "in case you want to know, and in case you think I'm this great and wonderful boyfriend because I'm not—I do things like that, like eavesdrop, and check messages, and break into your email—"

"You already do that," Carlton blinked slowly as he stated the obvious. "So it is possible that Jasper wanted to get caught, so he broke into Englers—"

"Because it was familiar to him. That way, if the cops didn't get there in time—"

"He would pass out where he was comfortable. Eventually, if no one did catch him, he would've died." Carlton thought the whole situation rather maudlin, and it poked at his conscience further. "I still don't believe it. All I know about this, Shawn, is that I followed you around without your permission, and it was a dirty, seedy, stupid thing to do, and it's been bugging me ever since I found out that you and Adrian split up. Hell, I didn't even know it was a guy you were seeing, I just thought—I thought you were in some kind of trouble."

"I was," Shawn said honestly, innocently. "I was going to get myself out of it, too. Eventually. I just had to know," he went on to say, keeping his watery eyes on Lassiter's, "where the money came from—the money we were going to use to buy the house. It didn't make any sense. If you knew him, if you heard the way he laughed at me when I talked about going without certain things so we could have enough—so we'd have enough—you would've wondered, too. You would've."

Carlton moved Shawn back to the couch, threw the duvet over him. "Gosh all," he grumbled, "what is this thing made out of? It's—it's everywhere! Are you in there?" It'd gotten tossed over Shawn's head, and he pulled it down to reveal Shawn's sad face, with the bandage on it, and his droopy, tear-rimmed eyes. "I thought you were never going to talk to me again."

"You were just doing your job," Shawn said, shaking his head, tucking his hands just over the comforter's edge. "You weren't even just doing your job. You were doing what any good friend would do."

He nodded before finding Shawn a tissue. It was any wonder he didn't need one himself, roiling around in these unchartered emotions. What was he going to do? He couldn't leave Shawn, still racked with his own guilt and the questions riddled between them. He texted Chief Vick: _Going to be a little late this morning. In later. _

Vick texted back promptly. _What's more important than your job? _Because she was nosy, she wanted to know what he'd say. He was too honest to lie.

He didn't even think about lying. _Shawn_, he wrote back, adding nothing else.

"Come on," he grabbed Shawn by the shoulders and squeezed. Shawn had taken a blow to the head with the butt of Will's pistol, and was in no place to be jerked around or moved too quickly. The headache would last a while. There'd probably be physical therapy, and maybe some mental therapy, too. Carlton squeezed him again. "Want some breakfast?"

"Sure—where?"

"Didn't we decide that almond kringle fixes everything?"

"Did we?" Shawn got off the couch, one foot in front of the other down the hall. Lassiter supported him with a hand at his back, pushed him along gently. Otherwise, Shawn was not so sure walking was possible, or that being upright was an action a human could do.

"But doesn't it?"

They were playing that game again—holding a snippet of a conversation only by using questions.

"Lassie, are you trying to say that we're going to Platypus Park?"

"Who else does almond kringle better?"

"Won't your Irish ancestors roll over in their graves at you eating something so decidedly, you know, European?"

"What do I care? What do the Irish eat in the morning that tastes as good as almond kringle from Platypus Park? Put these on."

Shawn's arms were suddenly full of jeans—jeans he'd had on last night when he'd arrived back at Lassiter's. The house on Sunberry Lane. Home—not home—but like home.

Carlton opened a dresser drawer, closed it; another opened a second later, closed again. "Why are these empty? Do you have a spare shirt somewhere?"

"Did you check your closet?"

"You keep your clothes in my closet?"

"Would you ever notice them there? And, no, I don't," Shawn brought a momentary hiatus to the game, as Lassiter had when he asked Shawn to put on the jeans, "just grab something—something warm, too. I'm cold. Is it ever going to get sunny and warm in California? What do I live here for?"

"Almond kringle?" Lassiter suggested from his room across the hall.

"Probably. And my dad. And Gus. And Jules. And you. And, let's face it, ninety-percent of why I live here is Chief Vick. I can't hide it anymore." He heard Carlton's laugh carry from the other room, and it went far into him, warming him and healing him.

Lassiter brought him a t-shirt in blue, of course, and an old jogging sweatshirt that smelled faintly like shoes and fresh fruit. In the dining room, Shawn's head popped out of the sweatshirt, scattered his too-long hair. He shifted it out of the way. Lassiter breathed in when the waft from all of Shawn hit him, and there was that smell again. Today it was coffee and ocean waves and the remnants of sleep, and the exciting promise of beginnings.

Shawn turned around, certain that his phone had been left on the couch. It wasn't there. Pandora was.

"Forget something?" She held the jeweled box in her lap. That didn't keep it still. It quivered. He could sense it. He could hear the crackle of electricity within.

"No," he said. The weight of his phone against his leg. "No. My mistake. It was in my pocket the whole time."

She smiled, innocent, almost demure, keen and cunning. "That's okay, Shawn. Go play with Carlton, if you want. I'll wait here. And when they come?"

It was obvious that they would come, those things he'd been dreading. His dad had already talked to him about it, too, and it was embarrassing. But he'd gotten himself into such a tireless mess of mistakes and sorrows, and he would get himself out of it, shed himself of one big mistake and a lot of sorrows.

"We'll see that chaos through together," Pandora promised. The box quivered again, sparkling jewels and gold and the serpent wriggled. A hiss was heard, and a faint cry as of a soul in pain. "Go play now. It'll be good for you. He's good for you. And Shawn?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll be here when you get back."

He knew that. Chaos was behind him. Chaos was ahead. Chaos never ended. But he hadn't been defeated yet. Hope was still in the bottom of the jar.


	27. Author Notes

**To Be Determined Later: Notes**

**Chapter I Never Explain Anything**

—All chapter titles are taken from the books Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, Peter Pan and Alice Through the Looking-Glass. Some earlier chapter titles are from the Mary Poppins 1964 movie but didn't appear in the books. I believe "Never Explain Anything" is a rare one that was both in the movie and the first book.

the Vons on East Harbor Boulevard in Ventura, California  
—If you haven't looked it up yet, this is a real location of a Vons... the Vons on East Harbor Boulevard. There's also a Trader Joe's near by.

All the famous Sagittarian writers listed are accurate.

"Wait, hold on. You can actually see me?"  
—This is from a meme I run into sometimes.

"Are you ok?"  
—Writing text messages in Times New Roman font that turns into a fanfic, IDK... There are a lot of ways you could make text messages differ from regular prose or dialogue text. I narrowed it down to the two that I was comfortable with: using it as dialogue (quotation marks), and, typically if mentioned in the past-tense, I put them in italics. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Wasn't there a lunch counter, breakfast bar kind of thing back in the day?  
—I tend to make things up as I go along that aren't in the show... Harkening back to the opening from Brought to You by Murder, with Little Shawn and Little Gus, I vividly remember writing in some sort of center-island counter type thingy, but it didn't seem to exist in the show. Yeah but I'll repeat this a lot, sometimes what you write in fanfic doesn't echo what was in the show... and sometimes that's the point.

a JJ Cale song sped through his head  
—"Someday" by JJ Cale. It's easier to find the Mark Knopfler/Eric Clapton version on the Tubes. Worth looking up.

mostly empty of Civil War tomes, the Shaaras, and Murakami  
—Michael and Jeff Shaara wrote a lot of Civil War books. Think I've mentioned them in other Psych fics. Haruki Murakami is a best-selling Japanese author of surrealist fiction. His best known work might be Kafka on the Shore. I haven't read any of his stuff. I wanted to use a writer that was far from the Civil War stuff but also obscure enough to make you wonder if the author was a) real; b) if Lassiter had ever actually heard of him; c) if it was something that Lassiter might've read because he i) thought Shawn would or had; ii) because Victoria insisted that he read it; iii) neither of these; iv) both of these.

Platypus Park  
—I wish I could remember how Platypus Park got its name. Anyway, it's been in all my Psych fic, I think, but I can't really suggest a real-life equivalent in Santa Barbara. It's a little like Jeanine's, at the corner of State St and N Ontare Rd, but bigger, and more wood decor. There's a wooden cutout of a platypus on one wall. It's more loft style, with some black metal work in the ceiling especially, and a lot of woodwork around the whole cafe. Platypus Park has a big seating area inside, with the work counter and bakery display in the back of the shop. Windows along the front and the southeastern side. The entrance is in the middle, emergency exits in the back and along the southeastern side. It's a stand-alone building, close to other buildings. The original building might've once been a bank.

Drives a Mercedes, E-class.  
— I think only car nerds would get why saying "E-class" is relevant.

"Hey, Dobson."  
—I don't know how many times Dobson was actually mentioned in the show. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one: S2E09 Bounty Hunters! When Lassiter is giving the team around him tasks while Dwayne Tancana is on the run, Dobson is mentioned, but I believe he is off screen. I've always enjoyed fleshing out his character. Later in this story we find out that his real first name is Jack. (Obviously, it wasn't in the series.) He's actually one of my favorites to write (or I wouldn't write him), with his wishy-washy indecisiveness and his constantly fluctuating weight and his super-hot firefighting honey bun. Since I never watched the series after season 6, I don't know if he was ever used more often.

**Chapter 2, We Are Not A Codfish **(Mary Poppins)

Although they say that on basic cable now, you know.  
—I believe this is true. I know the show "Suits" did a whole lot to push swear-words onto basic cable, although Suits started its first season in June 2011, so it wasn't on the air yet in May 2011. The second season of Rizzoli & Isles ushers in that show's use of the S-word, and it premiered in July 2011.

He wasn't Barbara Gordon or Marilu Henner, he didn't remember every day of his life.  
—Barbara Gordon from Batman. In some mythos she has an eidetic memory. So does Marilu Henner, not Batman mythos (why not?), who can remember every day of her life. Someone please write a Batman fanfic (Batman Beyond, anyone?) that features Marilu Henner.

**Chapter 3, Teach Me to Sing** (Peter Pan)

He'd fixed the toaster last week, before Adrian left, and there'd been a splurge of Pop Tarts consumption ever since  
—There was some episode (season 2?) of the show Lucifer in which Pop Tarts were mentioned and eaten, I believe, and this stemmed from that. Pop Tarts are a weird contagious food. If you see someone eating one, you want one. Or is that just me? Might just be me.

"I'm really more fond of their almond kringle."  
—If you haven't heard of almond kringle, I'm truly sorry. If you're wondering where I heard of almond kringle, there's a chain of grocery stores here that makes it at their bakery and sells it and its delicious and so, so bad for you but I don't caaaare...

That Shawn had stayed more than four years in Santa Barbara, his hometown, was peculiar.  
—I think my time was a little off, but I'm not worried. I think it gets worse as the story goes on... haha, continuity is a demon that has such an evil cackle... and then it eats almond kringle.

"You don't ask me what happened... You know the answer to that."  
—Ah, the first of many "monologues" in this story!

What about you? Kinsey-six?  
—To be honest, I hated this whole bit of dialogue and wanted to take it out. Unfortunately, I figured it probably added something to the story, it was also culture-relevant, and left it in—against my better judgment. I have had people ask me where I am on the Kinsey scale before. It's kind of annoying. More irrelevant information: According to the Kinsey Institute, there is no "Kinsey Test" to measure homosexuality. However, there's a fun one on Buzzfeed you can take. If you're curious, I took it and got "equal parts homosexual and heterosexual."

"Yeah, he did. He really did."  
—If anyone hurts you, he did something wrong. Don't ever believe he didn't, even if he is egomaniacal enough to believe that he didn't. He did. It's now known as the "Doing Nothing Wrong Paradox." Or the DNWP.

"There's a guy down in holding. Won't talk."  
—I had no idea what this story was about when I started writing it, then I got to this line.

Oh, yeah. Old Speakeasy. Like at the Tanglevine Club.  
—Blatant ALAS reference.

I should get off the phone.  
—Gus and Shawn kept trying to get off the phone but never really hung up when they said they would. Love them.

Even his father wouldn't tell him what was in the Super Secret Room.  
—Brought to You by Murder reference.

**IV. Cages Of All Sizes And Shapes **(Peter Pan)

Once a man, now The Body.  
—I went back and forth on whether "The Body" should be capitalized. Throughout the rest of the story, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Was he blushing, or embarrassed? Neither? Lassie knew way too much about him  
—The idea of "coming out of the closet" doesn't really work if you're not, you know, a big-time celebrity and poof, wow, everyone now knows you're gay (or what you will). The truth is, you come out of the closet, so to speak, every time you talk to someone who doesn't know, any new person you make friends with, and anyone/everyone around you. It makes sense that Shawn would be a trifle embarrassed—you have to go through that again and again with everyone you know. File Under: _Things straight people don't get._

a standard Bic with grip stripes at the end  
—I guess it's fairly obvious that I'm a fan of pens and office supplies. This is a "BIC Round Stic Grip Xtra Comfort Ballpoint Pen."

Maybe one of his famous sinus infections were coming on.  
—ALAS reference. Probably in BTYBM, too.

But everyone has something about them that gives away where they've been.  
—I was tempted to fix Shawn's grammar. Since it was dialogue and not prose, I didn't. "Everyone" is a singular noun; "them" is a plural noun. _File Under: Sneaky English Grammar_.

...when O'Hara and Gus announced their engagement, doing so with one of the greatest pranks the couple had yet pulled off.  
—Reference to a story that I have never written... or haven't written yet. I think it's mentioned in ALAS and BTYBM.

Henry muttered, again holding Shawn, pinching his boy's earlobes the way he used to do when Shawn was still in diapers.  
—I don't know where this affectionate daddy gesture came from, but Henry does it to Shawn, like he did when Shawn was little, any time that he feels like Shawn is hurting particularly badly, or whenever he's been worried about Shawn more than usual. I don't remember what fanfic I wrote that this first appeared.

**V. Well Begun is Half-Done** (Mary Poppins, the movie)

July, 2010  
—I think this whole flashback scene with Shawn and Adrian is probably the sexiest thing I've ever written in a Psych fic. I have never written an "adult" Psych fic before, and I didn't want to get too sexy, in case, sometime down the line, I decide to write more Shassie stuff. I'd rather save it for that. Don't get your hopes up. The chances of X-rated fic being written and released by _moi _are pretty slim. Strangely enough, my "professional" writing? Yeah, lots of X-rated stuff. My fan fic? Rather devoid of X-rated stuff, in which a cock is just a rooster. This is pretty backwards. Professional writers don't tend to write more x-rated scenes in their "real" writing than their fanfic. Fanfic is often (but not always) used for sexual exploration.

Dr. Strode  
—I kept wanting to call him Dr. Spode for some reason...

Mayor Dario Cordero  
—Cordero, as Santa Barbara mayor, only appeared in the unfinished/abandoned crossover fic "Exes, Hexes... and Justice." I don't know who the Mayor was in Psych-verse at the time this story would've taken place. It was easier just to make up a character.

**VI. Kindly Stop Spinning About Me** (Mary Poppins, the movie)

"No," Carlton said. He needed to explain.  
—Monologue #2!

Carlton settled against the coffee table  
—Monologue #3!

"I think there's three Man with No Name movies waiting for us tonight."  
— From Wikipedia: The Man with No Name (Italian: Uomo senza nome) is the antihero character portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" of Spaghetti Western films: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).

**VII. Six Impossible Things **(Alice Through the Looking-Glass)

The typical things about Shawn, if there were typical things about him, were known to Adrian: his height...  
—Well, sometimes the characters you're writing about do not resemble their actor counterparts. The actors are merely representations of the characters themselves, just like what's in your head: they're merely representations.

He'd gone to Stanford: the White and Cardinal flecks of his collegiate history still adorned his apartment.  
— For those who aren't college buffs, "White & Cardinal" are the Stanford colors. That's actually what they're called.

With a wooden spoon, Shawn budged sautéed broccoli to a bowl with sliced chicken and a warm Italian-flavored cream sauce.  
— I love writing about FOOD. If you never know what to do with a character in a scene, give him FOOD. It's a great leveler.

Is that pineapple chopped up with mini marshmallows?  
— Dessert is SERVED. This is really good, and I used to have it a lot when I was a kid. Not so much as an adult. Canned pineapple works well, too. So does fruit cocktail. And mandarin oranges. And uh... pretty much any fruit under the sun.

"And, again," he'd told Juliet that morning, "here we are, tap dancing and doing jetés all around Shawn and his problems."  
—BTYBM & Hank foreshadowing...? Gus was also a dancer, so he would know the lingo.

Gus's steps stumbled when the sheets and puffy white-blue comforter billowed out the word.  
— I adored how this stupid comforter became, like, a character all on its own throughout the story... It starts off innocently enough, but, by the end, it just keeps trying to eat Shawn.

So, Carlton, let me know if you want to add him to your benefits as a domestic partner.  
—ALAS foreshadowing...

He slipped into the tiny wagon, Gus's latest corporate vehicle: white, dinky, four doors, four cylinders, and about eighty miles to the gallon (no, not really, more like 35, but that was great for a non-hybrid model)  
— I change around Gus's "corporate car" a lot. I think in every story, it's different. The next one I do, I want to give him a Golf GTI because he looks like a Golf GTI kind of person to me.

... how it'd been to ride around in Adrian's father's Nissan 350Z all last summer...  
— me like cars.

"Medical Examiner."  
"Same thing."  
"I beg to differ. I asked you to take us there, right?"  
— There is a difference between a Coroner and a Medical Examiner, Shawn is correct. In most states, Coroners are elected officials who do not have to have a medical degree (yes, for real) in order to hold office, but they will likely have the authority to hire a medical examiner to do the autopsies. Medical examiners are physicians who hold a license to practice medicine within the state they are working. I do think that I looked up what the county itself had and I think it was Medical Examiner, but this was a while ago. _File Under: Fun with Local Facts!_

"I told you. Lassiter's coffee is no joke. You're going to need a whole new inseam."  
— This whole sequence was a last-minute add-in just before I released the chapter.

**VIII. To the Highest Height (Mary Poppins, the movie)**

Carlton had heard an anecdote that suggested being a cop was 95% boredom and 5% terror.  
— This was in a book I read (to help me get in the frame of mind to write this story). 400 Things Cops Know: Street-Smart Lessons from a Veteran Patrolman by Adam Plantinga. Quill Driver Books, 2014. ISBN 13: 9781610352178.

And Arlette, the other detective...  
— In case I haven't mentioned it lately, Detective Arlette is blatantly named after Eddie Arlette from the short-lived but awesome TV show Keen Eddie. If you haven't watched it, you should. Good times. I still like to imagine that Detective Arlette really is Detective Eddie Arlette, and he's off having adventures at the same time I'm writing these Psych stories. My imagination is often a happy place. Full of fictional cops, apparently.

"Hey, Carlton, do you play Trivial Pursuit?"  
— ALAS reference

"He doesn't like discussing business over the telephone. You know that."  
— I don't know that, and I don't know if it was in the show. It just seemed like a puzzling character quirk. And I wanted an excuse for all of them to meet at Woody's office.

"I love your later stories. They fascinate me… like you do."  
— Okay. So. [settles in] Writing Juliet and Gus in love with each other gets a little weird, even for me sometimes. (When you get right down to it, it's also weird to write Shawn and Carlton, too.) Because Gus and Juliet hardly had any interaction in the show, there's very little reference for a fanfic writer to pull from as to how they would act together. That emptiness can also create a void that we can fill, and we can make it and shape it how we want in order to progress this relationship the way we see it, and a way that feels correct and organic to us as creative people. When I get into a television show, and that show has good characters that interact with each other, I've noticed that there is a tangible difference between "forced" sexual tension between characters (like Shawn and Juliet), and natural sexual tension (Shawn and Lassiter). However, the few times that I've glimpsed Juliet and Gus interacting, it's affectionate and appealing, more of the "natural" flow of friendship than the created relationship we were asked to believe in. _File Under: The Shipper's Manifesto_

"I'm really not sure at this point," Shawn replied, lost.  
— If anyone had followed this story up to the release of this chapter, you might've noticed a really long delay between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 (this chapter). Because I knew how important this chapter was to the rest of the story, I had to have all the details as correct as I could get them. If any detail was wrong, it'd be too late for me to go back and fix it, and any error, being considered permanent upon chapter's release, would've changed the entire ending of the book. It was really important to get it as close to perfect as I could before I released it. This chapter also marks about the 1/4-spot of the book—so there was a lot left to write and a lot of details to work out. I've never been great at writing mysteries—they tend to get sloppy—but I actually tried with this one! There was a lot to work with.

Mission Street Ice Cream (& Yogurt)  
— This is a real place in Santa Barbara. And, yes, they do have Ice Cream _and_ Yogurt. And it is on Mission Street. I invite you to go their website and watch their super cheesy promo video. Please. It'll brighten your day!

"Porcelain chips—"  
— Porcelain chips were one of the oldest "clues" I'd written down in the story's original notes. I'm glad they were able to get used.

"Alkaline or acid base?"  
— Thanks in part to the research conducted in order to write this scene and figure out how the body would carry clues, I became briefly OBSESSED with acids. Also, I'm not a chemist, and while this might not all be 100% accurate, I think I did okay.

Bleach from Target might have a pH of eleven, while bleach made for and sold at Vons might have a pH of twelve  
— This is true. Bleach varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. But the variances are minimal, within one or two units. The pH scale is a unit of measure that describes the acidity or alkalinity of a solution, and goes from 0 (acidic) to 14 (alkaline). _File under:_ _Shit I never learned in school, but that fanfic taught me._

Stay fresh, cheese bags!  
— This is from a meme I've loved for years, one of my favorites. It's some UK(?) product that you're supposed to put cheese in, and they're called "Stay Fresh Cheese Bags." Well, the meme had added, "My new favorite phrase when I leave a party." Please find a way to work it into your everyday lives, you'll not be sorry.

"Ew, ew, ew! I feel like I have things crawling on me! Blah! Gus! Do I have things crawling on me?"  
— Yeah, I'm with Jules. Woody's theory really grossed me out.

Go back to Garden Street, then hang a left.  
— All the directions in the story are relatively accurate. I have "real life" markers for fictional places, like Shawn's place and Lassiter's house, the Tanglevine Club and Henry's house. Gus is also right, there are usually three or ten different ways to get to where you going. Some are more direct than others.

Mee Mees: The 1500 block of San Andreas St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Tanglevine Club: East Beach area, S. Milpas 93103

Lassiter's house: East Side neighborhood, Sycamore Canyon area... also 93103

Calm your man-tits, Gus.  
— Hahahahaha. I say it with some regularity. The word "man" is optional. If you'd like to class it up, replace the word "man" with "super."

It was bought last year by Adrian's sister Brooke. She owns it.  
— I knew that in ALAS Shawn was living at the laundromat, so I had to find some way to get him back to it during this book. I remembered in ALAS it was always being worked on (and at least once in the show, if I recall accurately), and also having it purchased by Adrian's sister helped, it added depth to the dilemma of Shawn returning there.

"I know his first name." But Gus had momentarily forgotten it.  
— I didn't know if I'd ever mentioned or given Dobson a first name. Don't think so, but recall that at some point I said his name "wasn't Mike" and they were all glad to limit the amount of Mikes they knew by at least one. This two-line bit of dialogue is self-mockery.

The backroom and the whole of Englers' remaining relatively unchanged from when it closed is based on a personal experience at a store I have been to. The pharmacy in the middle of the grocery store had closed years before, but if you go into the walled-off area (part of which is now an office), it's completely unchanged. Labels are still on the drawers. It's fascinating and creepy at the same time.

**IX. The Day Out **(Mary Poppins)

And he threw up last night.  
— Shawn seems to throw up in all my fics, so I just let him do it again. Now, it's a thing. He might even throw up in the next one, too. It's like the pineapple in the show—you have to look for it, but it's there.

"To the massage parlor, please, my good man Godfrey."  
— My Man Godfrey, 1936. Classic screwball comedy. Recommended if you're bored late (late!) at night. Or early in the morning. Actually, any time is probably good. Check the Tubes. It's also on Prime. Don't be put off by the colorized version that's on Prime Video, it's actually pretty well done.

"It's for Okuden-level reiki practitioners, but we would also welcome apprentice masters, too."  
— All the reiki stuff mentioned is accurate.

_What's My Line?_ on You Tube  
— Good show. Also nice if you need to fill in 20 minutes here and there. On an episode I watched once, there was a comment from a viewer that said something along the lines of, "The American accent used to be so nice." Referring to the guest panelists and their wondrous early and mid-20th century American accents. There truly is a difference. Some generation of TV show stars also had a good, classic American accent, like TV brothers Frasier Crane and Niles Crane from _Frasier _(1993-2004): both Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce have fabulous American accents. So do actors Miguel Sandoval and Rachel York. And, let's face it, Mitt Romney's is pretty good, too.

Unless we're talking tennis or the band Oceanlab, I don't know who Justine is.  
— Justine Henin and Justine Suissa... two of the world's best Justines!

I have the certificate and that genealogy thing somewhere.  
— When you become a reiki practitioner, you get a certificate that traces your lineage back to its original Japanese master, Usui Mikao (1865-1926) through the reiki masters that performed your initial reiki attunement upon you. I am a seventh-gen reiki practitioner, meaning that there are five people ahead of me before you get to Sensei Usui.

Broken hearts don't work that way.  
— Healing a broken heart with reiki is not impossible, but it's a bit more involved. Any sort of "energy work" and, well, even psychological healing, deals with healing four particular areas: mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional. Mental and emotional are not the same thing. Mental usually deals with focus and anxiety that's beyond the realm of emotional stressors; emotional is, like, depression and broken hearts. Everything is interconnected, however, and while I was receiving energy work treatments the only one me and my practitioner skipped was spiritual.

If he started wearing anything from Lassiter's wardrobe, then he would worry.  
— ALAS reference/foreshadowing

Vladimir Mayakovsky poem: YOU, from 1922. It's a highly appropriate poem for this story and what Shawn's going through.

You came –  
determined,  
because I was large,  
because I was roaring,  
but on close inspection  
you saw a mere boy.  
You seized  
and snatched away my heart  
and began  
to play with it –  
like a girl with a bouncing ball.  
And before this miracle  
every woman  
was either a lady astounded  
or a maiden inquiring:  
"Love such a fellow?  
Why, he'll pounce on you!  
She must be a lion tamer,  
a girl from the zoo!"  
But I was triumphant.  
I didn't feel it –  
the yoke!  
Oblivious with joy,  
I jumped  
and leapt about, a bride-happy redskin,  
I felt so elated  
and light.

**X. Pretend That It Is The End **(Peter Pan)

Anyway, Gus avers that Shawn has more sexual tension with random toasters than he does with people.  
— This is my own personal opinion. I might've mentioned it in other fics, but can't recall exactly. I know I've talked about it with other Psych fans in real life. In fact, this is also the metaphor I use.

Her fingertip rubbed purposefully against the armrest of her beige armchair.  
— ALAS reference.

'I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.'  
— Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act 3, Scene 1

**XI. Child & Serpent **(Peter Pan)

The bike seemed to turn up here and there as if it had a mind of its own  
— I don't know about you lot, but I find this to be true. It's hilarious how I can't tell when and where that bike is going to show up. Because of this, I have a vague idea of a future Psych fic that involves the bike.

"Learn to do the Melbourne shuffle."  
— This is a dance style. Check You Tube. It looks really fun. Good for those of us that are still staying at home as much as possible.

**XII. A Song to the Moon** (Mary Poppins Comes Back)

Carlton's funky sleep pattern was lifted from my own life, and also seems like it would be true when it came to him.

... and went back to bed with the Glock 26 9mm placed in the nightstand drawer.  
— A true Glock model, more known to be a "women's gun," because for some reason some people assign their preternatural desires of certain genders to our deadly weapons. (America!) The reason I chose this one is because it's smaller, lighter, and would fit well into a small bedside drawer. It's also easy to use. It is not pink.

Now, all he seemed to notice, was himself, was Shawn.  
— Only while working on this story did I notice (pun!) how visual a person Lassiter actually is. It's been in all the fics I've written that the more he "sees" someone in his life it means he cares about that person, and that's sort of how he comes to love them: as they share his life and move her/his material world into his world. This wasn't something that I set out to incorporate into Lassiter's character, it was an intuitive bit that developed over time and that I only caught on to while reading and editing this work. This part of him is actually quite fascinating to me. I'm not like this at all.

We drove by, saw the Norton, and thought—  
— and once again with the bike showing its mysteriousness... Spookiness increases!

Even Shawn would have trouble reading a whole book of Immanuel Kant in one day.  
— German philosopher, 1724 - 1804. Strangely enough, it's hard to find a copy of Kant that isn't a college textbook. Penguin Classics released one, but I can't remember the results of my research, whether the book was too old or it had only been published in the last five or six years. I want to say that one, so it wouldn't have been around in 2011.

He and Mike didn't drink much coffee at home.  
— My next fanfic is going to have Dobson and Mike at home, I swear... No, no, wait—I PROMISE.

He let go of the tie, but not without giving it another tug first.  
— This became one of Shawn's subtle routines to show Carlton affection. I don't like to overkill it, cute as I think it is, so I try not to mention it all the time. This is also the first instance it happens.

**XIII. He Loved Flowers** (Peter Pan)

And their always adorable debate on how many movies Johnny Depp and Tim Burton had made together, without actually bothering to look it up.  
— This was based on a conversation I had with someone at work. We devised that it might've been eight movies they worked on together.

It wasn't the dreaded papers inside at all, but a couple hundred-dollar bills and a teller's check.  
— The "dreaded papers" and such are hinted at throughout the rest of the story, but I never say what they were. They were either, a) a personal lawsuit that Adrian threatened to file against Shawn; b) bank account papers; c) divorce or annulment papers, assuming that the two of them had eloped (and thus proving that Lassiter was right, see chapter 6). I suspect that they were C.

A box of books was unloaded next.  
— I've always imagined Shawn having a lot of books. He wouldn't have traveled with all of his books, I'm sure, but he could've kept them in storage or at his dad's. We know that Henry didn't throw anything [much] of Shawn's away. I also think some of them were Gus's, borrowed and never returned...

One of them was his old reiki handbook.  
— There are SO MANY reiki books. As a practitioner (preferring to work with plants and pets, but people are okay too), I'm almost always reading one. The most well-known are The Reiki Manual by Penelope Quest and Kathy Roberts, the Reiki Sourcebook by Bronwen and Frans Stiene (developers of the International House of Reiki), and Essential Reiki: A Complete Guide to an Ancient Healing Art by Diane Stein. They wouldn't make much sense to someone who hasn't been attuned, but if you're interested, reiki classes are usually available (except probably not right now), and they're not often too expensive. DO NOT take them "online," it isn't the same thing and you really must be in a classroom setting. "Healing hands" or Therapeutic Touch (TT) is another form of energy healing that doesn't require attunements and is something you can try to learn on your own. Start with Michael Bradford's classic work, The Healing Energy of your Hands. He had no formal training from any kind of teacher, sensei or guru, and developed a technique on his own. It's a quality introduction to the formation and feel of energy shifts through the body and environment. It is important to mention that there are lot of requirements to be a TT practitioner, and you might have to be apprenticed under a well-learned mentor.

He opened the oven door, peeking inside to golden heaps in a baking dish.  
— FOOD again. Yay!

I don't see the world in gay goggles the way you do.  
— I see the world in gay goggles. It makes everything brighter. Who's with me?

"What about _The Merchant of Venice_, hmm? Antonio and Bassanio?"  
— I had Bassanio named Brassario in the original upload of this chapter. I don't know why, usually I'm meticulous about those sorts of things. Shakespeare scholars generally accept the fact that the characters Antonio and Bassanio were likely lovers. If you don't believe me, watch the 2004 film and the smooch that Antonio (Jeremy Irons) and Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) give one another. See, accepted scholarly gay goggles. (I tried to watch this movie again recently, and I can't. It's the setting: Venice, filmed on location. And I just can't watch. Venice freaks me out.) Oddly enough, there is another character named Antonio, from Twelfth Night, who was also in love with another male character named Sebastian. I suppose that's just a coincidence, or maybe Will had the hots for a guy named Antonio. Or Antonio was his cool Italian nightclub handle. I'm voting for the latter.

I know the closest he—a fictional character, by the way—ever came to saying it was in 'The Crooked Man'  
— This is true. And, yes, Gus does need to lighten up.

And those are just pillows.  
— Another example of Shawn loving inanimate objects more than people.

leave them alone in a dark room with Mary Wells playing  
— Mary Esther Wells (May 13, 1943 – July 26, 1992) was an American singer, who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s. Please look her up—she was "fabu." Even The Beatles wanted her to open for them on their North American tour. I feel like some of her fame is starting to fade, which is a shame because she really was wondrous.

It left him feeling a bit too Timmy Martin for his liking.  
— Timmy Martin was the boy in the Lassie TV show. This wasn't exactly clear. There are old episodes on You Tube.

Shelby Foote's book _Shiloh  
_— Foote was born in Mississippi in 1916, and died in Tennessee in 2005. Shiloh was originally published in 1952.

... there was that whole Nathan Bedford Forrest thing...  
— Wikipedia says this (and more) about Foote's take on Forrest, which ties into the "Lost Cause" negationist ideology: Foote lauded Nathan Bedford Forrest as "one of the most attractive men who ever walked through the pages of history" and dismissed what he characterized as "propaganda" about Forrest's role in the Fort Pillow Massacre. Foote compared Forrest to John Keats and Abraham Lincoln, and suggested that he had tried to prevent the Fort Pillow Massacre, despite evidence to the contrary.

—The poem is one by Boris Pasternak, Winter Night.

It snowed and snowed, the whole world over,  
Snow swept the world from end to end.  
A candle burned on the table;  
A candle burned.

As during summer midges swarm  
To beat their wings against a flame  
Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed  
To beat against the window pane  
The blizzard sculptured on the glass  
Designs of arrows and of whorls.  
A candle burned on the table;  
A candle burned.

Distorted shadows fell  
Upon the lighted ceiling:  
Shadows of crossed arms, of crossed legs-  
Of crossed destiny.  
Two tiny shoes fell to the floor  
And thudded.

A candle on a nightstand shed wax tears  
Upon a dress.  
All things vanished within  
The snowy murk-white, hoary.  
A candle burned on the table;  
A candle burned.

A corner draft fluttered the flame  
And the white fever of temptation  
Upswept its angel wings that cast  
A cruciform shadow  
It snowed hard throughout the month  
Of February, and almost constantly  
A candle burned on the table;  
A candle burned.

— The other poem is by Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837). I used an old translation to avoid potential copyright issues.  
I loved you: yet the love, maybe,  
Has not extinguished in my heart;  
But hence may not it trouble thee;  
I do not want to make you sad.  
I loved you hopelessly and mutely,  
Now with shyness, now with jealousy being vexed;  
I loved you so sincerely, so fondly,  
Likewise may someone love you next.

"Gewürztraminer it is!"  
— Ugh, such a good wine... it's somewhat pronounced like "gur verz trammnur" but if you ask for a "gertie" wine at your local store, they'll know what you're talking about. It's a white with fruity, peachy tones, and not as flat as a riesling. Get two bottles. It's like adult Kool-Aid.

"Top-loading or front-loading?"  
— Shawn's excitement over being asked such a nerdy question is a genuine tap into 80s Culture. When front-loading VCRs came around, they were considered a sign of prestige—like owning one of the first CD players. For some unknown reason, I still have two VCRs, neither of which is hooked up right now. One is a professional editing VCR. Front-loading.

I find it helps if I hear Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in my head  
— Orff's Carmina Burana was his most famous piece. It was used in the 1981 John Boorman film Excalibur. And I do find that it helps get you through bad situations if you have it in your head or playing around you somewhere. It's also sampled heavily (and very well) in Enigma's song "Modern Crusaders" off the 1999 album The Screen Behind the Mirror. And likely other songs as well.

From Wiki: In 1934, Orff encountered the 1847 edition of the Carmina Burana by Johann Andreas Schmeller, the original text dating mostly from the 11th or 12th century, including some from the 13th century. Michel Hofmann [de] was a young law student and an enthusiast of Latin and Greek; he assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto, mostly in secular Latin verse, with a small amount of Middle High German and Old French. The selection covers a wide range of topics, as familiar in the 13th century as they are in the 21st century: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of Spring, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust.

Chapter 13 is one of my personal favorites.

**XIV. Any Trickle of Pity **(Peter Pan)

I think, but I'm not 100% sure, that this is where I picked up writing the story again after not working on it for six months. The phrase "be on your toes" was what got me back to it.

Sorry for the lengthy pause between the release of Ch. 13 and the release of Ch. 14. I was really sick... with _allergies_, and headaches.

It was not the first time he'd formed her from the death of love, with anyone, or even with Adrian.  
— Despite how strange this sounds, it isn't that unusual for people going through a lot to create imaginary friends, even if they're not necessarily "interactive" beings. This is a condition that can go dormant then reappear at times of stress, like Shawn and his imaginary Pandora.

She held his box of personal hells. But there was one thing people tended to forget, or plain not know, about Pandora: She was the first mortal woman.  
— This is true. While a demigod, she was the first "mortal" woman the gods created. And, of course, like most mythology, religions, and folklore, the woman is the one who messes up!

And it wouldn't have been a box at all that she carried, but a jar.  
— Due to some translation error, "box" took place of "jar," so, in actuality, Pandora carries a jar, not a box. You can use this trivia to impress your friends!

and Hesiod in the corner taking notes  
— from Wiki: Hesiod was a Greek poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded as the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject.

— The poem that Shawn recites in his head is something I made up in the style of Hesiod. He was one of the only ones to write about Pandora. Here is an example:

Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,  
she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not  
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the  
lid of the jar. This was the will of aegis-bearing  
Zeus the Cloudgatherer.

the final gift that never escaped when evil was unleashed, the final gift of hope.  
— Also true. The only thing left in her jar was the gift of hope, as the sample of Hesiod above suggests. I feel that, right now, all that a lot of us have is the last gift in the jar: hope.

He hadn't eaten a whole lot, and not very well, and most of his clothes were a little loose in areas where they'd been less loose before.  
— When I went through my own hells last year, a variety of things, there were times that I wouldn't eat, couldn't eat, due to high social anxiety issues (it's called social anorexia, I guess?). Thus, Shawn's weight loss was taken from my own real-life experience. It's true that I started writing this because I thought it would be therapeutic to write a really heartbroken character, and I've always felt like Shawn and I were a lot alike, so I Mary-sued it a bit. Then again, there are very few people who haven't gone through something that might've destroyed them if it hadn't been for hope—or imaginary friends—or fanfic.

From what he recalled of reiki workshops, and reiki in general, it was better to dress in layers.  
— This is true, in case you're thinking of taking that continuing education class. Most practitioners while using reiki will get really hot, but not always. This goes too for a lot of energy healing, and even praying and meditation—the body gets hot. This doesn't happen to everyone, and having cold hands while doing reiki or energy healing is not as common but it doesn't mean it's not "working" or "turned on." All energy work defines itself, meaning that it contorts and conforms to what it _needs _to do. If heat is needed, it will bring the heat. If cold is needed, then cold is used. I should write a book. This isn't something that's studied when skeptics examine the effects of energy work on the body. Perhaps they shouldn't always be looking for the results on the one the practitioner is working on, but rather the practitioner. I bet there'd be interesting results.

"My tang and matching trousers are in the dry cleaners."  
— For those who don't know, a "tang" is what you call those nice loose-fitting shirts with the band collars and the long sleeves that you might see a lot of tai-chi masters wearing.

"I put a lot of cream and sugar in this. Too much?"  
— I like the idea that there is no set way that Shawn takes his coffee. In another scene (when Gus stops by to wake him up), Shawn's fine drinking it black. He might have cream, he might not...

All the weather mentioned is fairly accurate. It really wasn't super warm in Santa Barbara that May of 2011. It took a while for it to get nice.

Perhaps because they already knew that Ford was no longer going to make the Crown Victoria, and in the future he'd have to break in a new kind of car.  
— Ford did stop making the Crown Victoria in 2007. Usually, these were replaced by Dodges, Avengers (2008-2014) and Chargers. Chargers could come with a HEMI V8 engine on, say, a 2010 model, which could give up to almost 370 horsepower. There's a 2016 Charger Hellcat edition (MSRP $65K) that could do 707 horsepower at 6000 RPM, and 650 lbs torque at 4200. I don't know that any police departments would've been able to afford one, let alone teach anyone to handle it. — This sentence should actually say "Ford no longer made..." but I might go back and fix it sometime.

He could go see Chris, his haircare guru at Salons by Mick.  
— I want to remember this, because it sounds like it'd be fun to use in a future fic.

And it's not Hicksville. It's Valgen, Indiana.  
— Valgen is a mash name of two towns in southern Indiana. I don't think I mentioned the name of the town at the end of ALAS, and tried to go back and find it but couldn't. I had to make up the name for it for this fic. I thought it was in ALAS, but I might've removed it, or just couldn't find it. If it's in there, sorry for the contradictory names. Then again, towns can change their names... Update: The name of the town in ALAS was Barrel Creek, I found it! I'm going to stick with Valgen, though, and fix it in ALAS. Here is a slightly humorous anecdote and weird coincidence concerning one of the two names that makes up Valgen, IN: I went to the local farm stand last week (August 2020), and I decided to get a "personal seeded watermelon." So when I was out there looking at the melons, I happened to notice that the big box was from a melon farm in Vallonia, Indiana. *THE* Vallonia, Indiana. Vallonia is the "first half" of the name Valgen, and Valgen is the name of the town in Indiana that I made Shawn's family from. Since I kept asking for signs that I was doing the right thing by continuing this whole writing thing, I've had doubts lately, running into this was really strange, amusing, and a smidgen gratifying. It's a town of 300 people, Vallonia, so running into anything from there is incredibly unlikely. And Wegan, the last half of the town of Valgen, but spelled wrong (+gan, not +gen), isn't much better. Actually, Wegan is an unincorporated community with a population so low it's not even listed on Wikipedia.

I do a Scots brogue (more southern Glasgow, Borderlands) that usually makes my mother laugh pretty hard. Never tried reciting poetry, though.

The IHOP is 1701 State Street, 93101. There is also another one "outside" downtown, at 4765 Calle Real, 93101. Hence why Gus asks if they're at the one "in town."

Your bones are made of clairvoyance. Your heart is a medium.  
— No doubt, two of my favorite Carlton lines. They were last-minute additions before release.

"The problem is," Shawn began again...  
—I don't know if this qualifies as Monologue #4? Maybe?

"Twenty-three. Or thereabouts."  
— When you reach a certain age, you kinda don't remember how old you are, or how old you were when you did other things... hmm...

He'd spent a lot of time in Canada and a little bit of time in Sinaloa, Mexico.  
— Sinaloa is a state in Mexico, where Mazatlán is. Shawn worked there for a long time in this fic-world.

**XV. Don't Waste the Fairy Dust** (Peter Pan)

After all, there was no scientific evidence that said energy healing arts did what they claimed.  
— If you read any Wikipedia article about any form of energy healing, one of the first things it says is that it doesn't work.

Wiki Reiki:

Clinical research does not show reiki to be effective as a treatment for any medical condition, including cancer, diabetic neuropathy, or anxiety and depression, therefore it should not replace conventional medical treatment. There is no proof of the effectiveness of reiki therapy compared to placebo. Studies reporting positive effects have had methodological flaws.

Wiki Aromatherapy:

There is no good medical evidence that aromatherapy can either prevent, treat, or cure any disease.

Wiki Therapeutic Touch:

The American Cancer Society noted, "Available scientific evidence does not support any claims that TT can cure cancer or other diseases."

And so forth...

Namaste, Will.  
— You hear the word namaste a lot, but for those who don't know... In Hinduism, it means "I bow to the divine in you". Pretty, isn't it? Namaste may also be spoken without the gesture, or the gesture may be performed wordlessly [Wiki]. The gesture that's made is called a namaskar. The characters in Kung Fu Panda use the namaskar a lot. SKADOOSH.

There is no book I can find that's called _Good Reiki_! If I write one, I'm calling it that.

"You owe me," Lassiter had said through a tight jaw and with flashing eyes, "you owe me so, so big for this, Guster."  
— I intended to write the whole scene of Gus and Lassiter discussing this at 7 AM, but left it out due to length, and realizing that it would become unnecessary. It would've dragged the story down. I think the single paragraph summary is more impactful than a whole chapter or long scene would've been.

... especially after the IHOP monologue  
— So I guess it was a monologue, after all!

He was glad that they spent fifteen minutes practicing it on themselves  
— One of the signature "rules" of reiki is to use it on yourself every day. Naturally, a reiki workshop would have you doing reiki on yourself first.

I don't even know how I wrote anything that Pandora tells Shawn. I went back and read it later and thought she gave him some pretty good advice... Writing is primarily an influx and a joining of intuition and understanding, sometimes rendered outside of yourself.

Pandora raised one eyebrow, a quirk so much like Denise that Shawn wondered if his cousin was one of his closest emotional pillars in his real world.  
— I mention Shawn's "cousin" Denise in a couple of fics, this one and I think the end of ALAS. I think she's actually his second cousin.

"Wakey, wakey," Will said, dropping his hand from Shawn's forehead.  
— "Wakey, wakey," is stolen from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S01E10. "Hey, Giles, wakey, wakey." I had not been watching any BtVS during the time of this composition, and the references are without any explanation beyond the fact that I've seen the whole series and I'm a fan.

...not liking the look of a vulnerable Shawn still on the floor, and Will hovering close.  
— Carlton isn't worried about Will being close to Shawn because he's jealous, but because he doesn't want Shawn to get into another relationship, one that he would think was "bad."

... and there were always "hummers" in a group that size, about thirty people  
— I've been to a lot of groups before and, yes, this is true. I noticed it the most in the last group I went to, with about 50 people, and there were at least three "hummers." I don't think hummers realize that they're hummers.

"Can you do a healing session for someone who's dead?"  
— Based on personal experience at my second reiki class. We were assigned the task of sending a reiki treatment to someone not in the room, called a distant treatment, and someone that we knew and/or had heard of, even if we hadn't met before. Me and a fellow classmate were both drawn to doing reiki for a dead person (not the same dead person, uh, that I know of). And, yes, you can. It's just unusual. People aren't inclined to think immediately of healing the spirit of a dead person.

But he saw colors behind his eyes in swirls and fans, in prisms and sparkles, and then the whole thing was over.  
— People usually have some sort of reaction while getting attuned. Seeing colors is one of them. My imaginal realm was different when I was attuned, and I was the only one in the class that cried. It was weird. I think I would've preferred seeing colors.

"I'll be gentle with myself. I promise."  
— Please be gentle with yourself. We're always so hard on ourselves.

The little green bug that Lassie saves is a Green Lacewing. They're sometimes nocturnal, but I've only ever seen them during the day (obviously). They usually land on me, I think they're sort of cute, and are a beneficial garden insect. According to pacifichorticulture dot org, this is a lacewing's diet: Many common garden species eat insects and other small arthropods, including aphids, thrips, leafminers, small caterpillars, beetle larvae, whiteflies, leafhopper eggs, spider mites, and mealybugs. Some adults do not feed, or feed only on nectar. Writing this part made me a bit teary. I think it's one of the most touching things in the whole story, because Lassiter does it without any sort of reward—it's just who he is, and it shows he's worlds better than Adrian.

**XVI. It Is a Princely Scheme **(Peter Pan)

We should try combining your first name and last name. Carlas Tonter.  
— Please do! It's hilarious. Mashing up various words and names is how I make up weird fantasy names in my writings. And also fictional villages in Indiana. Carlas Tonter just happened to work really well. Shawn's, eh, not so much.

Shawn took his with a bit of sugar, and grabbed a Lu's Pims cookie  
— MORE FOOD! I love Pims but can eat a whole sleeve of them in one sitting, and that really can't be good. Is there a cookie that goes better with tea, though? I mean, really... Pims and a cuppa. I need nothing else.

_Alwin_, Lassiter suddenly thought in his head. Mike's last name was Alwin_.  
_— This amusing little tidbit came about because, while I was writing this, I had actually forgotten Firefighter Mike's last name until I got just to the beginning of that paragraph.

**XVII. Innocent and Heartless** (Peter Pan)

"A lot of people would never approach a good-looking person just automatically assuming that a good-looking person already has someone he or she is dating. So, consequently, they don't get asked out a lot on dates."  
— This is based on a good-looking woman that I knew through work. She was perpetually single and I was like, "Wtf you talking about?" And she presented this theory, not because she was arrogant about how she looked but because she had heard it from someone else.

"I don't know, probably wouldn't be all that awesome. I mean, how long would that magic last before they realize that going home just means more work?"  
"Like strippers?"  
— Lifted from a joke heard from Jimmy Carr on an episode of Q.I. He said something like "What do strippers think when they get home at night? 'Eh, more work.'"

... I can fix myself up, pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.  
— This particular lyric is from "Pick Yourself Up" from 1936, with music by Jerome Kern and used in the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical _Swing Time_. If you are looking for female role models, Dorothy Fields is a good one. She was one of the most successful lyricists of all time, particularly during a period of American culture when women were not very active in such arts. She even married (1939-1958 [his death]) and had two kids, David and Eliza.

Piccards  
— Jean-Luc Picard, the Star Trek reference their making, spells his surname with only one "C." Still, the tea joke could've slipped out of their mouths at least once.

**XVIII. His Sobs Woke Jane **(Peter Pan)

It took an ominous and tricky thirteen minutes for Carlton to arrive...  
—Thanks, Google Maps! I think for a while I was trying to have everywhere the characters go take 10 to 15 minutes. This was based on a town I lived in, where, no matter what direction you were going, it seemed to take 18-20 minutes to get there, outside of your own neighborhood.

"Information Society," Shawn recited, wondering if Lassiter wondered. "Tommy Boy Records, 1988."  
— True. The song is "Lay All Your Love On Me," and is probably one of ABBA's most-covered tunes. Information Society (we nerds call them InSoc) did a really good cover for their self-title release. The band Erasure (please watch the video! please! GOLD LAME SUITS) did a cover for their ABBA-inspired album ABBA-esque. If you're looking for a completely different sound, try Amberian Dawn's cover on You Tube.

"A good memory can be a curse."  
— This was often said in another USA Network show, _Monk_. "It's a curse... and a gift." I think somewhere in Psych, Shawn says this, too, probably piggy-backed from _Monk_. The Ingrid Bergman quote Shawn is thinking of is "Happiness is good health and a bad memory."

...to mess with the Shakespeare quote that came into his head—it was not improbable fiction.  
— Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene IV.

... would likely turn him off of drinking for a while. Not forever, of course, but a while.  
— The show being the show, Shawn didn't drink a whole lot, and there were consequences when he did. Inebriated Shawn gets into trouble in BTYBM.

He could plan a trip—maybe in August or September, when it was hot and stuffy in southern Indiana and he could get away from all of this for a while.  
— ALAS reference... the end of ALAS takes place in the month of August in Indiana.

Shawn winced his eyes at Lassie. "Is that really true?"  
— Yes, it's a true story. The Civil War has a lot of quirky tales that are fun to read.

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History  
2559 Puesta Del Sol, Santa Barbara, CA 93105

Lotusland  
Cold Spring Rd, Montecito, CA 93108  
In order to attend, you have to have a reservation. (In case you're planning your California getaway.) I ignored this in the story. Probably not worth your while to ignore it in real life.

**XIX. The Death Dealing Rings **(Peter Pan)

Gus and Juliet had a light repast of stuffed tomatoes baked to perfection, and a side of roasted chickpeas with herbs, and a nice white wine.  
—FOOD! The stuffed tomatoes are really good. I've made them. Use a combination of rice (white or brown, cooked), cottage cheese, any other shredded cheese of your choice, along with finely chopped broccoli (cooked) and some Italian seasoning (not a lot, to taste preference). Empty the tomatoes of seeds & flesh (romas work well), spoon concoction into each tomato half, top with more shredded cheese. Bake until heated and cheese is bubbly. Serve hot. Not a finger food!

**XX. The Evening Out **(Mary Poppins)

Not like Sherlock as portrayed by RDJ in the 2009 film...  
— References the 2009 film with Robert Downy, Jr (RDJ) and just after the opening sequence when he blocks his face as the camera is about to go off.

"You know him."  
— When I wrote this, I didn't know how this slant of the plot would turn out. In the end, it made sense. At the time I wrote this scene, though, I was worried and perplexed, wondering, myself, "WTF is going on?"

"Okay—go on. I'm listening."  
— "I'm listening" is Frasier Crane's catchphrase on the TV Show _Frasier_. I watch it a lot. It's one of the least depressing things that I do watch...

He was a zippy little fellow...  
— Will was inspired by Peter Pan.

**XXI. The Wheeling Sky **(Mary Poppins Comes Back)

with blue and white plaid pants and a plain pale blue t-shirt...  
— Wow, them's a lot of P's and B's in that there sentence... "And next in our elocution lessons..."

He turned the knob to turn off the timer.  
— Kids these days might not know that stoves used to have analog timers on an analog clock. Photos of them are even becoming hard to find on the internet.

"By hand?"  
— Cinnamon rolls aren't really that hard. Boxes of Bisquick or Jiffy have a recipe, and they don't require yeast.

...maybe Daniel Day-Lewis has some advice  
— The actor was in a movie called My Left Foot in 1989. He won an Academy Award and a BAFTA for his performance. Coincidentally, Day-Lewis attended the 2013 Santa Barbara Film Festival.

I didn't, but now I know you wear fancy underpants.  
— ALAS reference.

The maintenance shop was west, off Hollister but past Turnpike Road.  
— Around the 5700 block of Hollister Ave. 93117.

"His name? His is Jasper, but he goes by Jas. Don't know his last name for sure, at least not until I finally sue him, but I think it's Collins."  
— There was a really weird coincidence with the selection of Jasper Collins as the character's name. I had already decided on the name Jasper Collins before I started reading the book _Why Shoot a Butler? _by Georgette Heyer. Oddly enough, the names "Jasper" and "Collins" appear in the same sentence, but the names belong to two separate characters. In the paperback version of the book, it's at the top of page 29.

**XXII. Lord of the Stars** (Mary Poppins Comes Back)

There should be nothing greater than duty, he didn't care what Victor Hugo wrote.  
— "There is then something more than duty." It's from Les Miserables. This quote is actually at the opening of another fanfic of mine, The Questionable Occurrence Spawned in August. It's one of those quotes that sticks with me.

He smelled better out there, and there was that clover-soft sweetness of a California morning to greet him.  
— Nothing quite like the smell of Santa Barbara in the morning. (Although I guess that depends on where in Santa Barbara you are.)

Outwardly, he held to every atom of his physical being. It began to knock around in his head, first with a hollow sort of bong-bong  
— As much as Lassiter is a visual person, Shawn seems more like an aural person. (Perhaps a trait he gets from his mother, with her "tonal memory.") A lot of his emotions and sensations revolve around sound.

Pelican Beach  
— A coastal city in northern California, just south of the Oregon border.

**XXIII. Deary Ducks **(Mary Poppins Comes Back)

"Well, your mom _is _older than me."  
— I don't know if this is true in the show or even ever talked about, but I thought it was funny.

... even after the night of cousin Sissy's graduation party  
— I believe "cousin Sissy" was actually lifted from the film _Hot Fuzz_, however subconsciously that'd been at the time. Obviously one of my favorite films, partly because it has fictional cops (I guess), and it was used in the crossover with Psych that I never finished.

"Everyone's always in a crisis. First rule of being a cop. Everyone you meet has something going on."  
— I learned this at fake cop school.

**XXIV. In Spirit as in Substance **(Peter Pan)

Oh, hey, if it isn't Lestrade.  
— Lestrade is a character from the Sherlock Holmes tradition. Not a lot is known about him, but he was an Inspector at Scotland Yard. In fact, not even his first name is revealed in canon, only that it begins with the letter "G." There is a definite phonetic resonance between "Lestrade" and "Strode," but, other than that and the fact that he was one of the best detectives of Scotland Yard, Lestrade really has nothing to do with the story... /end valueless information

Lassiter held in a yawn of his own. "Right."  
— Hey, did you yawn here? Yeah, you. Did you yawn? I do, every time I read this...

He guessed nothing had been missed so bad that his mind ached for data and his body needed something to do.  
— Another allusion to RDJ and the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie. Quote: _Data, data, data. I cannot make bricks without clay._

... he suddenly felt old and did not feel like saying how long he'd been a detective...  
— I stopped short of guessing how long Lassiter had been a detective, simply because it was unknown.

No one really liked Ballas. He was kind of a jerk.  
— I'd never used Ballas before and wished I'd known about him sooner. Unfortunately, this looks like the only fic he'll be in, unless I write another prequel type of thing. He moves to another department and isn't part of the SBPD anymore.

**XXV. A Few Little Beasts **(Peter Pan)

Lestrade was too ambiguous of a character, anyway; too unfinished and too poorly defined, even in the canonical works of Doyle himself.  
— See, I told you!

Some of the most painful and harmful and terrible crimes are committed by the upper classes  
— More stuff I learned in cop school. One of the reasons for this is that middle and upper classes spend a lot of time in their homes or behind their backyard fences. In traditionally poorer neighborhoods, people hang out and know each other more. They tend to have a stronger sense of community.

... from the Hayworths to the Castellanes...  
— The Hayworths are the family in the forefront of the mystery of The Vintage Crimes of Christoper Sly (which I never finished due to my grandmother's death), and mentioned frequently in Brought to You By Murder. The Castellanes were fictional and not used in any fanfic of mine.

There was speculation that the Golden State Killer _and _the Zodiac Killer had both taken victims from Santa Barbara County.  
— True. I believe the Golden State Killer killings in Santa Barbara (and Goleta) are confirmed; the Zodiac Killer death(s) remain speculation.

Not to mention that Elizabeth Short used to eat at the long-gone Snappy Lunch Diner before she was murdered and became known as the Black Dahlia.  
— Also true.

**XXVI. Am I Not A Wonder **(Peter Pan)

She was tough—much tougher than Julie Andrews, but Shawn just pictured Julie Andrews in his head and that softened the Mary Poppins from the book.  
— Mary Poppins' "toughness" and "meanness" in the books is one reason that adults don't like to read the books. If you picture Julie Andrews, it helps. However, when I read them I didn't have any trouble with Mary Poppins' character.

"Dad brought over some of his chicken and noodles."  
— FOOD! Based on my stepfather's own chicken and noodles. Which I've only had once. So delicious.

... my beautiful launderette...  
— Another Daniel Day-Lewis movie from 1985. Here's a one-line description from IMDB: "An ambitious Pakistani Briton and his white boyfriend strive for success and hope when they open a glamorous laundromat."

Also, I love this piece of trivia: My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1985) both opened in New York on the same day, March 7, 1986. Both movies featured Daniel Day-Lewis in prominent and very different roles: in A Room with a View, he played a repressed, snobbish Edwardian upperclassman, while in Laundrette, he played a lower-class gay ex-skinhead in love with an ambitious Pakistani businessman in Thatcher's London. When American critics saw Day-Lewis, who was then virtually unknown in the US, in two such different roles on the same day, many (including Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times and Vincent Canby of The New York Times) raved about the talent it must have taken him to play such vastly different characters.

... he could flick a cupful of coffee all over the front of Lassiter's suit. He doubted he'd feel such an inclination  
— An angry Gus does dump cold coffee all over Shawn in BTYBM.

"Gosh all," he grumbled...  
— "Gosh all" was a popular interjection of disgust during the Civl War. I wanted Carlton to use an exclamation that was uncommon and more unfamiliar to our modern speech.

That's it for notes! If I forgot something or you're curious about something, PM me!

The finished length of the story is just less than 126,000 words. Started: 26 June 2019. Finished: 11 Feb 2020.

My thanks to anyone who read the whole thing and enjoyed it. Please add me to your list of authors to follow. It's possible that the next Psych fic I write will be "Rated M for Mature," and won't show up on the default Psych story list. Following me is the best way to stay updated with new fics. I always welcome PMs and your input keeps the ideas for future fics rolling!

Thank you again, lovely reader!

Original Note found at the bottom of Chapter 6:

Dear Readers,  
I began To Be Determined Later on Wednesday, June 26, 2019... it was probably a beautiful summer's morning... I didn't know where the story would take me, or how much would happen with me while I wrote it. Every time I write a long Psych fic, it seems as though I lose a member of my family. I did this time, too, in November. But I liked this story, and, on a personal level, it was therapeutic—haven't we all had a broken heart at one point? I had to get to the end just to see what would happen!

I'm happy to say that it was finished on Tuesday, February 11, 2020. It was fun to write, with all the little meta things from my other Psych fanfics! I definitely want to write another prequel in the future (I'm thinking about the Swamp Monster and Gus and Juliet's engagement... what say you?), and I have an idea for a Christmas-themed one that is definitely in contention to be written, too. The actual word count of TBDL hovers around 121,000 (regardless of what FFN says), and will rise and fall with future edits. It's likely I'll be pretty slow at releasing chapters in the future—there's a lot going on—and there is a lot of editing work, just minute details, that I will try to have smoothed out prior to releases. It helps when you know the whole story. I was so sure about its ending, and, as usual, Shawn surprised me just as I wrote the final scene.

I hope you enjoy the remaining twenty chapters! Thanks for reading!


End file.
